Build Communications Applications,

Solutions and Products with Asterisk.

Asterisk transforms an ordinary computer into a powerful communications server

Who is Digium?

What is Asterisk?

Digium is the developer and maintainer of Asterisk, the

Asterisk is an open source software framework for building

worlds most widely adopted open source communications

communications applications. Asterisk transforms an ordinary

solution. Under development since 1999, Asterisk is open

computer into a powerful communications server. Asterisk

source software that turns an ordinary computer into a

enables developers and integrators to quickly and easily build

feature-rich voice communications server. Asterisk makes

communications applications including business phone systems

it simple to create and deploy a wide range of telephony

(PBXs), call centers, VoIP gateways, voicemail systems and

applications and services. Considered to be disruptive

conferencing servers.Asterisk is frequently used to power Unified

technology because it introduced a more powerful, affordable

Communications (UC) products and custom solutions. In fact,

phone system, Asterisk is a solution ideal for technically savvy

Digiums award winning Switchvox IP PBX and UC system is built

developers and integrators.

on Asterisk.

Who Makes Asterisk?

The original Asterisk code was written by Mark Spencer, the founder of Digium. Since its initial release,
Asterisk has been enhanced by a community of thousands of users and developers worldwide. Digium is
the sponsor of the Asterisk project, steward of the Asterisk code base, and owner of the Asterisk trademark.
Digium distributes Asterisk under the terms of the GNU GPL and also under commercial licenses.

What our Customers are Saying

Asterisk has provided Michigan Cat with a seamless, flexible system that is easier to use than we ever expected.
John Laffey, Open Source VoIP Programmer Michigan Caterpillar

Digium is committed to providing

the worlds leading open source communications project that allows you the

freedom to build what you want.

Voicemail
Unified Messaging

Call Conferencing

Call Recording

Isnt Asterisk a PBX?

Asterisk was originally built to be the engine of a business phone system or PBX and
has often been described as the open source PBX. That is something of a misnomer. A
PBX is just one of many applications that can be built with Asterisk.

Automated Attendant

VoIP Gateway
Speech Applications

ACD IVR IP PBX

Unified Communications

In some cases, Asterisk becomes the basis for a complete business phone system.
In other cases it is used to enhance or extend an existing system or to bridge a gap
between systems.

Who Uses Asterisk?

When Asterisk was created in 1999, we could not have
imagined that it would become the most widely adopted open
source communications software on the planet. Today there
are more than one million Asterisk-based communications
systems in use around the globe, in more than 170 countries.
Asterisk is is used by almost the entire Fortune 1000 list of
customers, and is commonly used by businesses, governmental
agencies, call centers and communications service providers
of all sizes. Asterisk is most often deployed by systems
integrators and developers who use it to create custom
communications solutions or new communications products.

Digiums Powerful UC Solution

In an effort to provide a similar solution accessible to

End users indirectly use Asterisk in the form of Asterisk-based

communications products and solutions.

everyone, Digium offers Switchvox a full-featured Unified

Communications (UC) solution, fueled by the innovation of

Asterisk Users are in Good Company

open source technology and the power of Asterisk.

Switchvox is a business phone system specifically developed
for small and mid-sized businesses and organizations
that want the power of the open source Asterisk solution,
but without the need for custom development skills for
installation. Switchvox allows users to integrate their phone
system with their existing networks and get all of the
advanced features they need at a price they can afford. The
advanced features, ease-of-use, and simple out-of-the-box
setup make Switchvox an ideal solution for organizations with
limited technical staff. Most importantly, by using Asterisk
open source software as the foundation for Switchvox, Digium
is able to provide a communications system with superior
capabilities for a fraction of the cost of proprietary systems.

Millions of businesses already benefit from Asterisk

solutions every day and have embraced the powerfully open
communications that Digium delivers.

2,000,000

Why Open Source?

downloads

By harnessing the power of collaboration, open source projects like

annually

Asterisk tap the creative skills of a global talent pool of developers,

testers, and users. The result is software that truly fits your organizations
requirements, can be customized to a degree impossible with proprietary
systems, and offers a drastically lower total cost of ownership.

86,000
registered
community

members
Deployed in over

170
countries

How Do Developers Use

Asterisk?

What Is the Asterisk

Community?

Asterisk works a bit like a web server or a

Community members from around the

database server: it serves as a platform on

globe are constantly collaborating, sharing

which developers can build applications. The

solutions, code and ideas that drive the

application developer writes script code that

continuous enhancement of Asterisk. Today,

implements business logic and dictates user

the Asterisk community includes more

experience. The scripts they write invoke

than 80,000 registered members including

components within the Asterisk framework

over 1,000 active code contributors far

which perform various communications

more than a typical proprietary software

functions: set up a call, play a file, collect

company can dedicate to a project or

digits, etc.

product. In addition to numerous community

contributors, Digium has dedicated a

On more than

1 MILLION
servers
worldwide

In use by most

Fortune

500
companies
Approximately

1.3 MILLION
new endpoints

each year

Asterisk includes a vast array of

significant portion of its engineering

communications components and services

resources to the open source project. Digium

that simplify the process of creating voice

maintains the code for the project and

applications. These include protocol

ensures that it meets the highest engineering

implementations, media IO functions, audio

standards. This means that all Digium

mixing and call routing. These capabilities

customers benefit from the development and

are exposed to application developers

quality assurance efforts provided by both

through several programming interfaces: the

the community and Digium corporate team

internal Dialplan scripting language, external

members, making subsequent versions of

programming interfaces including Asterisk

Asterisk more stable.

Gateway Interface (AGI) and Asterisk Manager

Interface (AMI), and the core C API.

Asterisk makes it easy to build powerful voice, video, fax

The resulting gain in productivity is dramatic. Creating a SIP-

and text applications by handling the low-level details of

enabled voice application from scratch, or even using a SIP

communications. The Asterisk framework includes hundreds

library is a significant undertaking requiring months or years of

of pre-build components: protocol implementations, media

effort. Building a similar application with Asterisk takes only a

codecs, file IO handlers, signal processing routines and other

few minutes.

communications plumbing. Developers use high-level scripting

languages to assemble these components into applications.

Asterisk Hardware
Asterisk is software. It runs on standard computers, not
expensive, proprietary platforms. This makes it very easy
to get started and simple to scale.
In many cases no additional hardware is required. VoIP
phones and services connect with the Asterisk system
via the computers network connection. In cases where
an Asterisk-based communications system needs to
connect with legacy telephone service or equipment,
Digium offers a number of solutions.

Asterisk Telephony Interface Cards: Digiums line of telephony

interface cards connect a computer running Asterisk directly with
telephone lines, legacy phone systems and phones. The cards are
installed in PCI or PCI-Express slots in the computer. They convert
the signaling and media from legacy analog and digital formats
into Asterisks native internal format.
Asterisk VoIP Gateways: Digiums VoIP gateway appliances
convert between legacy telephony connections and the industry
standard SIP protocol. They can be used to interface legacy TDM
communications systems with SIP networks or to provide PSTN
access to SIP applications.
Redundancy Appliances: Some mission-critical applications
require the ability for PSTN connections (phone lines) to failover from a primary system to a backup. Digiums R-Series
appliances facilitate that failover, helping integrators build ironclad communications systems.

Asterisk and Phones - Better Together

Asterisk is built on open standards. Open standards make it

Digium Asterisk Phones: Digium has built a family of SIP

possible for equipment from various vendors to work together,

phones that are specifically engineered to work with Asterisk-

creating an open ecosystem of suppliers and preventing

based communications systems. Competitively priced, these

vendor lock-in. Asterisk can interoperate with any standards-

phones support automatic discovery, easy configuration, direct

compliant SIP phone, giving users a wide variety of options

integration with core Asterisk services and an open API that

and price-points.

allows developers to create and run custom applications.

D40 / Entry-level

D50 / Mid-level

D70 / Executive-level

Digiums entry-level phone

designed for any employee
at your company

Digiums mid-level phone that allows for

Busy Lamp Indicators and Rapid Dial Keys
for your most important contacts.

Digiums most feature-rich phone, the D70

is designed for administrators and executives
who want to manage up to 100 contacts.

HDVoice

Line Keys / SIP Accounts

Feature Keys

10

Rapid Dial/
Busy Lamp Field Keys

10 keys

10 keys - 100 contacts

100 Mbps with switch

100 Mbps with switch

1000 Mbps with switch

3.5 inch

3.5 inch

4.5 inch

Paper

LCD

LAN connection
Main Display
Rapid Dial Panel
Power over Ethernet (PoE)
Full Duplex Speaker Phone
Advanced
Phone Applications

Asterisk Training and Certification

Digium offers instructor-led and online Asterisk training courses to help

Courses Offered:

people learn how to install, configure, tune, and maintain a complete

Asterisk Essentials (Online)

Asterisk system. The Digium-Certified Asterisk Administrator (dCAA)

Asterisk FastStart (3 day)

and Digium-Certified Asterisk Professional (dCAP) certification is also

Asterisk Advanced (5 day)

available, allowing you to bring a new skill set to your career or company.
For those who want to sell Custom Communications solutions based on
Asterisk, Digium offers a reseller partner program that includes Asterisk
Integrator certification.

Why Buy Digium?

Digium is the world leader in open communications. Founded in 1999, Digium has more than a decade of
experience in building innovative products that enhance and extend the power of Asterisk. From engineering to
support to sales, the Digium team is focused on creating value through the power of open source software and
open standards.
Digium is easy to do business with. With a mature global distribution channel and a focus on product quality,
Digium understands that communications means business.
Buying from Digium supports the Asterisk project. A substantial portion of Digiums revenue is reinvested in the
Asterisk project. Digium directly employs a team of developers who focus exclusively on open source Asterisk.
You can find Asterisk add-ons and solutions from the community at www.asteriskexchange.com.

Global Industry Recognition

2013

2012

Recognized globally, Digiums Switchvox UC is continually ranked as a winning SMB solution within the
telecommunications industry often beating competitors when it comes to innovation, features and value.

Connect with us at www.digium.com

Learn more at www.asterisk.org

Were changing the way the world communicates. Again.

Digium, Inc. www.digium.com www.asterisk.org
445 Jan Davis Drive NW
Huntsville, AL 35806, USA
+1 256-428-6000

Europe/Africa
South Africa +27 87 550 2590
United Kingdom +44 845 564 1419

Asia Pacific
Australia +61 28 073 4490
New Zealand +64 9 9 51 5875

Copyright 2012 Digium, Inc. All rights reserved. Digium, Asterisk, and Switchvox are trademarks of Digium, Inc.
All other trademarks are property of their respective owners. Version 1.1 / July 2013