Asterisk IP PBX Learning Tutorials - Part 7
Watch lesson 6 on Softphones: Asterisk Video Tutorials - Using Softphones
Setting up softphones and hardphones
In this video I will tell you about software and hardware that can be used with asterisk.
As asterisk supports a number of VoIP protocols, any standard compliant software and hardware will do the job. VoIP market is booming and there already are a lot of devices that work with asterisk and number of those is increasing every day. One of the best devices for doing VoIP is linksys (a former sipura company), they provide a wide range of telephone adapters that are easy to configure and use. A lot of websites on internet offer you configuration tools for such devices. You can find them by searching by your device name.
On the other hand all these devices still have their price high, and for testing and playing purposes you might consider using free and opensource software that emulates phone on your PC, in this case what you need is a handset with microphone and softphone (that’s how this software is called).
My particular preference for softphone is X-Lite, which you can get for free at www.counterpath.com, the website of company that produces it. It is very easy to use and to setup and it provides good quality of calls. In order to download X- Lite you have to go to ”Counter Path” website, which as I have told you is www.counterpath.com , click on the “products” tab, then on “x-lite” link
Ok, now when you have downloaded and installed X-lite softphone, lets take a look how we should configure it in order to work with asterisk. After launching, yo go straight to “SIP Account Settings”, and click add button, in the “Display Name”, “User Name” and “Authorization username” options you have to enter you extension number, in the “Password” option you have to enter a password for your extension, and in the “Domain” option you have to enter ip address of your asterisk server. Also you have to select “proxy” in the “Domain Proxy” part of options and enter the same ip address for your asterisk server as you have entered for “Domain”. Click “OK” and “Close”. That’s it, X-Lite is configured and ready to be used with asterisk. As you can see, registration status is “registered”. Lets check what we see from asterisk side, Here asterisk tells us that device with identification string “X-lite” has been authenticated and now is registered with us.
That’s it, now you are ready to place and receive calls, all you have to do is to pick up the phone and dial number you want. Wasn’t that easy? I bet it was.
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