Hey, everyone. Asterisk and its cousin technologies intrigue as well as confuse me. I'm wondering: Is it possible to set up an Asterisk (or other) server on a home computer with no special hardware and use it to route calls between mobile devices in remote locations? I'm hoping this could work similarly to Skype Mobile, Google Voice, etc., except on a WAY smaller scale. This is just something I'd use personally for calls to family and friends--nothing huge.

Since my computer is just a regular laptop with no 3G connectivity, I don't expect to use 3G for calls. I just think it would be cool, for instance, to go to a café with WiFi and use a SIP/VoIP client on my Android phone to call up a friend who also has a phone or PC with a SIP/VoIP client on it. I realize I could do the same thing far more easily with an account at Skype or some other provider. My interest in attempting this project is more for the learning experience than practical use.

If indeed this is possible to do with the hardware I already own, any tips for starting out? My computer is a MacBook Pro 5,5 (dual-booting Sabayon Linux and Mac OS X). I know I could install Asterisk from within Sabayon, install a specialized telephony distro to a new partition, or run a virtual Asterisk machine--but I'm not sure which option, if any, would be most appropriate here. I'm also not sure if Asterisk would accomplish what I want, or if I should look at other software. Thanks for any input!

The answer to your question is Yes

asterisk and it's cousin technologies can do what you'd like, but you wouldn't actually need them, you could just go sip/voip client to sip/voip client direct without having a server in between

No, asterisk is a PBX i.e. Private Branch Exchange, a software phone switchboard. When you dial a company and here a message similar to "If you know your parties extension you can dial it any time" You still need a VOIP service provider or you can connect the computer to the POTS to actually use it as phone system.

I do not know what other software is available but as already stated you can access a direct VOIP/SIP client

michaelk because asterisk can act like a pbx is precisely why it could be used, if both phones register to the same asterisk server or they do a sip/voip -> asterisk <-> asterisk <- sip voip (which is why I said you didn't really need asterisk)

I stand corrected. You can either configure a phone as a remote extension or allow anonymous SIP connections.

What's nice is nowadays you can use a service entry in your dns to point to your sip server and people can then "dial" your sip/voip phone using your email address (providing that you make a local extension in your voip server to match the name portion of the email)

_sip._udp.yourdomain.net SRV 10 10 5060 yoursipserver.yourdomain.net

the 10 and 10 are priority and something, basically if you have multiple listed they determine the order things will attempt to contact and the 5060 is the port your sip server is listening on for incoming (for example if you were using freeswitch then it would be 5080 if you are using the default settings)

Dunno if an srv record is something you could work in with dynamic dns, but that would be kind of cool, to connect up via wifi, dyndns updates your ip info and you could receive calls

I did find some info that you could use a dynamic DNS with asterisk.