On 01/30/2011 07:36 PM, df9 wrote:
Yes I realize the more people that are listening or watching. This is why I was looking for a VPN program.
Well.... now I am understanding just a little better. Virtual Private Network only accomplishes so much; VPN with encryption will add latency.
I had not understood the desire for conference calling. The next step up from Skype and the like is to configure Asterisk with a conference room. You may run VoIP within a VPN if you control all of the end points (which you do not with Skype). I would recommend OpenVPN as the VPN software. You really only have to have one [Asterisk | FreePBX | Trixbox | Elastix] server upon which you configure OpenVPN. For the sake of this discussion, the Asterisk server shall be at your location. All of your daughters shall need to have client OpenVPN configurations on their PCs (may be Windoze). They may then load the "softphone" program of their choice (Skype is a softphone that only works with the proprietary Skype network, for the purposes of this discussion). Once all pieces are configured, you and your daughters call each other or call into the conference room and yak away.
Allow me to expand a detail one bit. Asterisk is the core software PBX that a lot of people use. Many people find the nature of Asterisk intimidating because it is quite extensive and command line, configuration files driven. FreePBX is one layer of graphical manager tool which may reside on top of Asterisk. Trixbox and Elastix are additional rollups. Elastix sits on top of FreePBX which sits on top of Asterisk, running on CentOS 5.n. Elastix comes as a package install that loads directly on a target computer. I do recommend Elastix as a starting point.
This is possible but not trivial. Frankly, it amazes me that calls over the network work as often as they do --- latency. Expect the worst and be pleasantly surprised.
Hope this gives you pointers for additional research. Howard -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NLUG" group. To post to this group, send email to nlug-talk@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to nlug-talk+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/nlug-talk?hl=en
