Fonality launches trixbox Appliance, Asterisk-based VoIP PBX

Like Asterisk? Been waiting to take it to work with you as a VoIP PBX? Enter Fonality's trixbox Appliance, a new small business-grade rack-mounted server good for providing phone service for up to 500 nodes via VoIP, E1/T1, and 48 analog lines. Admins can look forward to the AsteriskNow GUI or the trixbox's own, running atop Linux, (with the usual Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc.); users can look forward to the usual intra-office voice systems, including perks like voicemail-to-email, and the like; middle-management can look forward to staying within budget when signing off on the $1000 base price tag. Silly wabbit, trixboxes are for VoIP nerds.

[Octhothorpe # @ Mar 19th 2007 9:00AM]

All hail Fonality! This is awesome news for the VOIP / Asterisk community. The price is well withing reason and sure to bring Asterisk more mainstream. I love forward thinking companies.

Fonality, you're awesome.

[Naveed @ Mar 19th 2007 9:37AM]

why does my hotel pbx that supports 110 lines cost over 15 grand

[Jared @ Mar 19th 2007 10:03AM]

That sure is one pretty box. I've been following Asterisk and Fonality for quite some time. Unfortunately we invested about $12k in an Altigen system when we moved into this new office. Needless to say, it's been nothing but a headache. Though the one feature we find invaluable is the desktop GUI. Once Fonality launched their HUD product I knew we'd be able to ditch the Altigen. The problem is, the resell value is terrible. Currently very similar solutions are selling for 1/10th to 1/12th on eBay.

Naveed, the reason these boxes are so expensive is because up until now there weren't any other options. Businesses needed phones and PBX providers wanted huge profits. Though that's how just about everything works in the B2B world. Try pricing out a $40 home DSL connection for a business. Just because you have a business address they'll charge you $300/mo and force you into a 4 year contract.

[pchow98 @ Mar 19th 2007 11:46AM]

Jared, I am very interested in this as well. I've been "following" Asterix@Home for quite some time now (now known as Trixbox) and have been trying to think of ideas in making a consulting/supporting business out of it. But the painful realization is that it isn't easy. Yes, Asterix is a very capable platform and I think it can be far superior to existing commercial platforms. But one very simple business fact remains - customers. Without buying customers (not one-time purchase type, but monthly/annual support type), it is still not viable. Avaya, Siemems or Cisco are accepted in the mid-size to large-size businesses are simply because they can be supported (from 3rd parties to internal) and support can be had for nation-wide and world-wide scale. An enterprising IT manager or director can try to introduce Trixbox from a point deployment standpoint, but I think it will be batted down from his/her CIO and may result in a career-changing move. Of cause, if the company itself is enterprising, that's a different story. But how many enterprises are like that and can I make a business as a 3rd party support for them? Most likely not. On the side of SMBs; they are more price conscious, so products like Altigen or even Trixbox can be entertained. But SMBs are also notoriously bad in their payments and willingness to do predictable business with. In the end, I have concluded that it isn't really worth my time to investigate further and perhaps wait until there's wider adoption for these type of technologies. This is just my 2 cents.

[Jason @ Mar 19th 2007 8:23PM]

For business trunk lines I would certainly reccommend Cbeyond (http://cbeyond.net)
They provide T1s to customer sites in their footprint and have been providing business class phone/data services on a completely IP based network since 2001.