Digium and Skype today announced the general availability of Skype for Asterisk. Skype for Asterisk software provides a robust and cost-effective solution for connecting Asterisk-based business phone systems to Skype. Now businesses can take advantage of Skype’s low-cost calling to landlines and mobile phones and free calling to more than 400 million registered Skype users around the world.
Skype for Asterisk allows businesses to access the world’s largest community of people communicating over the Internet, natively encrypts all voice calls and lets companies manage their Skype user accounts via Skype’s Web-based Business Control Panel. Businesses already using an Asterisk-based phone system can add Skype as another complementary form of communications by downloading Skype for Asterisk, without additional costly hardware. Skype users can benefit from the advanced call features of Asterisk, including call transfer, interactive voice response, automated call distribution, flexible call-routing and many more.
Digium is the innovative force behind Asterisk, the most widely-used open source telephony platform, downloaded millions of times and used worldwide by software developers, resellers and systems integrators to create flexible, cost-effective phone systems for businesses. Skype allows individuals and businesses to make free voice and video calls, send instant messages, share files over the Internet and make low-cost calls to landlines and mobile phones.
“Digium has been using Skype for Asterisk for the past few months while the product has been in development,” said Danny Windham, CEO of Digium. “We created Skype accounts such as Digium Sales and Digium Support-”a convention I suspect many companies will quickly adopt. Now, our customers all over the world can call us for free using Skype and our Asterisk PBX processes the inbound call just like it would a normal call. This is going to save Digium and our customers a lot of money.”
“The combination of Skype and Asterisk gives those companies that have relied on Skype the advanced call management capabilities of Asterisk, while Asterisk users get free calling to more than 400 million registered Skype users and low Skype rates when calling landlines and mobiles,” said Stefan Öberg, vice president and general manager of Skype for Business. “We believe the product will bring together two of the largest groups of users that value flexibility and cost savings in their PBX systems.”
Skype for Asterisk Features
Skype for Asterisk, which is compatible with the free and open source Asterisk versions 1.4, 1.6 and AsteriskNOW, as well as the commercially licensed Asterisk Business Edition, is unique in the market today. It is the only solution that integrates directly with Skype, enables multiple concurrent Skype calls from a single Skype account, and supports both G.711 and G.729a calling.
In addition, with the new software, customers can:
- Manage business Skype accounts with the Business Control Panel
- Get low Skype global rates on outbound calls (as low as 2.1US ¢ per minute to more than 35 countries worldwide; connection fee and fair usage policies apply)
- Receive inbound calls to online numbers
- Route calls according to Skype profile fields, online status and privacy settings
- Streamline customer contact by allowing Web site visitors to place free Skype calls directly to their business with global click-to-call buttons
Pricing and Availability
Skype for Asterisk is available to download now for $66 USD per concurrent call from http://www.digium.com/skype or from Digium Authorized Resellers and Distributors worldwide. Skype for Asterisk comes with 90 days of installation support from the time of purchase.
