Introduction to the Elastix Unified Communications Server

There is a revolution going on in the field of telecommunication these days. The world is getting smaller, the bandwidth is growing, and the protocols are becoming increasingly standardized, open, and stable.

In 1999, Mark Spencer began a very important project, Asterisk PBX. The advantages of open source licensing allowed this project to grow and develop features that were unachievable with traditional telephony devices at very competitive prices.

Nowadays, enterprises are not just looking for telephone solutions (PBX) anymore. They are looking for integral, complete, and "out-of-the box" solutions that allow them be as productive as possible. They want to keep their coworkers connected, reachable, and available at all times. If a CTO calls any coworker and the call cannot be answered because the person is at the lobby receiving a customer, it will be routed to that coworker's cell phone, which happens to have a SIP client registered to the PBX using the wireless LAN of the building.

The cost of such a call is almost 0 USD, and even if that coworker does not answer their cell phone, the call can be sent to a voicemail. The voicemail system can send the voice message as an e-mail, and when this person arrives in the office, the message waiting indicator LED on their phone tells them that they have a voice message.