Well we all know that Google Voice doesn’t do CNAM lookups on their caller ID information. So after a few months of using the Obi, I decided I wanted to find a solution that would allow me to get CNAM information. Luckily I found PIAF and Nerd Vittles during my search.

While I’m using the full version instead of the virtual version of PIAF, I have really enjoyed the process. I recently upgraded to PIAF-Green and I’m slowly replacing my analog phones with digital phones.

There are a lot of great features about the system that we love: free calling via GV, multiple VM boxes (one for each member of the household), email notifications of messages (with message attached), VmLocator, etc, etc, etc. But I think the feature I love the most is the auto-answer intercom feature. We use it a lot to round the family up for dinner, or when we are leaving the house, etc, etc, etc. Our house isn’t huge, but it is multi-story and being able to intercom is so much nicer than having to yell up the stairs to get people’s attention.

So a warm "Thank You" to Ward and the rest of the PIAF team. You guys are doing a great job.

From there I have gone forward with PBX-in-a-flash and have set up a teleyapper system for my community CERT group and now have become the telephone and network engineer at the same college where I began toying with asterisk as a student.

I can definitely say Nerd Vittles, Ward Mundy, Asterisk, and PBX-in-a-Flash have truly changed my life. I will remain a loyal fan for as long as the site remains.

In an ongoing quest to green up our household, I’ve just started building a low power consumption Intel Atom based MSI Wind PC desktop replacement for our current PIAF machine. The USB drive install looks like a great way to install PIAF on this machine, rather than hunting down a USB cdrom drive, etc.

I’ll definitely report back how PIAF runs on this new machine down the road.

Hope to also start deploying these for trying clients so would simply love that 8 Gb USB drive.

I work for a company in Los Angeles with a Merlin Legend PBX phone system which has a 23 line PRI and three backup Verizon copper lines. We also have two data T1’s. About 2 years ago we opened a small office in China. There was immediate concern about the costs for calling the China office since our long distance provider was charging about 15 cents/minute. Initially, I got a phone card account and programmed it into the speed dial of several phones and got the charge down to about 2 cents for the phone card plus 2 cents for the phone call – 4 cents/minute total. Still, I longed for something easier and cheaper.

Enter Trixbox and Nerd Vittles. I bought an OpenVox 4 port PRI card and got to work, eventually switching to PIAF 1.2. Vitelity was chosen for the provider for our international calls. PIAF was setup in between the Merlin Legend phone system (using a cross-over PRI cable) and the Telco PRI. All incoming calls go to PIAF first before arriving at the Merlin Legend PBX and all outgoing calls from the Merlin go through PIAF. ML – PIAF – Telco. If the call is within the US PIAF uses the Telco PRI, if international it uses Vitelity at 1.6 cents/minute to China. This has worked very well and is totally transparent to the users. The company definitely didn’t want to spend money on a new PBX nor VOIP phones, here we were able to merge the two together and leverage our Merlin phones with the advantages of a VOIP system.

The best feature of all is that 4 digit extensions were setup which dial our China office and China “visitor” cell phones. Rather than dial 011, country code and the11 digit number we can dial the 4 digit extension and get the China office or China cell phones. This is also available when away from the LA office. A person can call the LA office, dial the 4 digit extension and be connected to the China office. This has thrilled the company president who can now be on the road or at home, dial the LA office, and dial the 4 digit extension reaching the China office. Formerly he would call the China office from his home or cell and pay a high fee for the call. Additionally we also have 4 digit extensions for getting into Asterisk’s conferencing, finally breaking the Merlin Legend’s 3-way calling limit!

Recently a flooded Verizon cable plant downed our company PRI. We could not make or receive calls. A call to the PRI provider rerouted our incoming calls to our spare copper backup lines and a quick change to the PIAF programming sent all calls to Vitelity over our data T1. Back in business in less than an hour!

PIAF 1.2 has proven to be very reliable and has been up continuously for over 29 weeks!

Finally using the free “Asterisk Outlook Dialer” by LanTone.com I have finally been able to enjoy something I have wanted for a long time – dialing through Outlook.

The next thing I want to do (prompted by reading Greg Keys’ story) is see about dynamic channel allocation of our PRI and eliminate one data T1. We are not using all 23 PRI channels, so why not discontinue a data T1 and share a line between voice and data?

Thanks for putting together a great and reliable product!

I installed PIAF with IVR menus to redirect calling parties to new contacts. After doing this, my mother said the phone seldom rings and could not imagine not having her PBX.

As a side benefit, I installed IAX2 trunks between me and my mother. This allows us to talk without LD charges.

THANKS PBX in a Flash!

[WM: Good news. The new Orgasmatron III build is a Fedora 10 Mix, and the soon-to-be-released flash installer uses the same basic build.]

[WM: Soon.]

Thanks Ward and company!

My favorite use is when our Exchange environment failed at the corporate location (got to love M$). Our Exchange environment is our backend for our Unified Messaging. I was able to not only supply a multiple seat bridge (50) for restoration efforts via SIP and H323 Trunks into the PIAF system, but also provide an imap back-up for Voicemail for any boxes deemed critical. I now use the PIAF server as my Core Switch providing linking to all diverse systems (including TDM systems and Satellite Phones). I use it as a streaming information server for the mobile workforce and provide limited off-premise dialtone to remote marketing agents that work from their homes. I use the ACD and IVR for allowing remote agents to log in and handle marketing calls. In my development box, I am trying to terminate remote modem connections of SIP trunks utilizing software DSP’s and trying to eliminate our PRI’s into multiple modem banks for our 2000 remote telemetry sites. Just imagine, a communications rack with no AS5XXX. If it can be done with a fax and over VSAT or SAT Phone, 4.8kbps, it can be done with Soft DSP as 2.4kbps.

The hardware is an Industrial Server with Dual SATA drives, 4 Core Processor, and 8gb of memory. I run a full back-up system in a Virtual Machine using Xen Server on a monster machine at our data Center. This box has been the answer to my prayers at night as I huddle under the covers asking, "Will my budget get approved, Will the marketing guys from the other companies play on CTO’s fears, and what secret license/maint. costs will pop up out of nowhere?" None!! The CTO is happy…No, Amazed. I was able to save several 6-figure numbers by implementing this one Swiss Army Knife!

Mike H.

Earlier in the year, I was wishing that there was a Fax solution for PiaF and boom, the next week you guys had a complete how to on creating a complete fax solution.

Then last week, I’m lamenting how I wished there was an easy way to install PiaF via a flash drive and BAM, you guys have that coming out in a few more weeks.

I swear, you guys must be reading my mind!

Thank you for all that you do to make asterisk easy for the rest of us mere mortals. You guys rock.