Having worked a couple decades for an AT&T Business Phone Provisioning Center, we installed and serviced enterprise phone installations dealing with T1s and PRIs connected to Private Branch eXchange systems, which were primarily made by the same megacorps that made our Public Switch Telephone Network switches (eventually things started transitioning to VOIP services going over internet connections). These PBX systems were very expensive hardware solutions, but Mark Spencer came along and scratched his own itch creating a software and computer based solution which revolutionized PBX installations and made them very economical as well as making the project open source under GPL which could be used by anyone freely. Mark Spencer eventually sold his company Digium to Sangoma, and their project lead has a recent presentation on the history and direction of the project, and worth noting Sangoma also manages the FreePBX project that is a web GUI that makes working with and configuring Asterisk much easier (FreePBX is also open source as well).
For us Ham Radio operators, many of us run Allstarlink, Hamvoip which is based on an old version of Asterisk and is used to internet link ham radio repeaters and personal nodes together. But if you have a spare Raspberry Pi you can also install RasPBX which includes Asterisk 16.21 and FreePBX 15 on Rasbian 10, which are a little old but still receiving updates. Newer versions are available for X86 based systems on Debian 12 provided by Sangoma. Running your own PBX system at home gives you access to all the functionality of Asterisk and FreePBX with station to station dialing in home, ring groups, your own voicemail system with web access, software clients on your smartphone or computers, blacklisting and whitelisting, support for advanced features of IP phones… And it is a bit of fun to play around with. Add an affordable VOIP service for trunking like VoIP.ms and you can have multiple lines and DIDs, add your own conference or fax server. Consequently, VoIP.ms is super cheap if you pay by the minute with $0.85/mo per DID (or $4.25/mo for unlimited calling) and $1.50/mo for E-911 if desired (in my case it mainly pays my county fee for the service of your name and address showing up when you call 911). And running FreePBX and Asterisk on your local network simplifies configuration as you don’t have to enable encryption between phones and the PBX, needing to just secure the pjsip trunk to VoIP.ms that goes out through your router. Another benefit is this also makes setting up softphones easier as you don’t have to deal with NAT configuration, and when away from home you just use a VPN connection back to the local network to secure the connection.
The main dashboard is above, and the extension web page where you can manage voicemails, change settings and see call log is below.
Also I’ll mention another similar service from 3CX, but they are no longer supporting a full system on a Raspberry Pi, only using a Pi locally to manage the phone connections (SBC – Session Border Controller) if desired out to a free cloud PBX they provide (up to 10 users). If you trust running their cloud PBX this might be a good option though they did have a security issue in the past where they allowed malware to be sent out, but I’m sure they refocused on security since and are used by a lot of large megacorps while supposedly being easier to use. Of course, you might want to really pay attention to their user agreement and privacy policies.
So if you have a spare PC or Raspberry Pi, setup an Asterisk, FreePBX system for your home and have a little fun while enjoying the power of a full PBX system.
Privacy Addendum
Note that Sangoma collects some data from you when you check their FreePBX repository for updated modules. If you don’t want to send Sangoma this data, Clearly IP provides mirrors you can switch to and they promise to ignore this information while also providing their modules if you want to use any of their products. The only thing I saw that was different was that Sangoma has a newer Blacklist module version, or Clearly IP has just not updated that module in their repository at present. But you can decide if you want to use these mirrors or if you’re alright with Sangoma collecting this data.
FreePBX Stats Collection
By default, the FreePBX module admin system sends stats about your PBX to the Mirror Servers. We at Clearly IP have decided privacy outweighs the benefits of having these stats that Sangoma currently collects, so we are pledging that we will not be saving these stats when sent to us and will have them ignored instead of logging. The stats that are sent from your PBX to Sangoma every time you check online for updates are as follows:
- Module list and status (enabled. Disabled. Uninstalled. Installed) including modules not installed from Sangoma Mirror but custom modules you built and install yourself or 3rd party modules you receive from others.
- User count (also known as extensions when not in user and device mode)
- Kernel
- OS
- Asterisk Version
- Brand
- IP address
- System unique identifier (Fingerprint hash of system)
- Zend id (commercial modules)
- Endpoint manager device stats
- Including manufacturer of devices, models and quantity
- Dahdi Config device stats
- What brand and model of DAHDI cards you have installed and quantity
- Phone apps usage stats
- Every time a phone interacts with a Phone App the usage of this interaction is sent.