GrandCentral via Asterisk

[James Finstrom]

As far as I am aware grand central was cool a year ago but slowly
faded in to obscurity. Asterisk can be as powerful as a stealth bomber
or cripled to the level of a yugo all depending on the end user. I did
a presentation a few months ago the slides are on postug.com. As far
as features go the answer to most "can it" questions are yes. I
personaly have ubuntu 8.04 running asterisk 1.4.21 with inbound
termination from two providers and outbound through a few other
providers which allows me to basicly have full phone service as well
as toy phone numbers for a few bucks a month. My inbound calls are
automaticly screened through public databases for undesired callers
like telemarketers etc and said folks are transfered to a robot that
sounds like a senile old man.   I can tell you asterisk is awesome but
I have thousands of hours behind the wheel and I am able to make
asterisk contort as a result. A new user should expect a lot of lost
hair. I recomend getting a copy of the book "asterisk the future of
telephony" I know 2 of the 3 authors and they do an awesome job. Let
me know what you are looking for and how much effort you want to put
in I will give you some recomendations. If you want an asterisk
consultant I do believe JD Austin is doing just that which is an
option if you want asterisk without the learning curve.

On 1/19/09, Kurt Granroth <kurt+plug-discuss at granroth.com> wrote:
> I know that there are some people on this list that use Asterisk a
> decent bit.  Those that do... are you familiar with GrandCentral?  If
> so, how do they compare?
>
> http://www.grandcentral.com/home/features
>
> I really like the control that something like GrandCentral gives you.
> The ability to choose where you receive a call (home, cell, work, etc)
> based on who is calling or when they are calling is a killer feature for me.
>
> Alas, there are just too many potential gotchas with that service to
> really commit to it other than as a play-thing (or as a number passed
> out freely to businesses and warranty cards and the like).  What I would
> like is that kind of control... but in a way that *I* control it all!
>
> So no calls being routed through a 3rd party server; no voicemails
> stored on their server; no need to upload all of my contacts to a search
> company; etc.
>
> Asterisk seems like it might be able to do all that... but who can tell?
>  Their site is horribly disorganized and when you do find a "feature"
> page, they spend all their time in an acronym frenzy.
>
> So... does anybody know?
>
> Kurt
>
>

-- 
Sent from my mobile device

James Finstrom
Rhino Equipment Corp.
http://rhinoequipment.com ~ http://postug.com
Phone: 1-877-RHINO-T1 ~ FAX: +1 (480) 961-1826
Twitter: http://twitter.com/rhinoequipment
IP: guest at asterisk.rhinoequipment.com