Voice-over-IP is taking the world by storm. It's changing the telecomunications playing field in a similar fashion as open-source did with software. And in fact, the newest revolution is based on open-source software in the form of Asterisk, the open-source PBX system. VoIP is much, much more than simply asterisk though, and more and more proprietary solutions are beginning to support at least SIP (One of the many Voice-over-IP protocols for carrying signalling data).

VoIP seems to be the way of the future. Ultimate Linux Solutions can envison a world where there no longer exists phone numbers. Where people will call one another by using a SIP Id (similar to an email address in structure), where all call costs are effectively reduced to the cost of the required bandwidth, which is much cheaper than the comparitive call rates (On ADSL at current ISP rates this is typically less than 5 cents per minute).

VoIP Special

In order to cellebrate this revolution and the progress that has been made, Ultimate Linux Solutions has decided to run a special which includes a phone, subscription for your first three months and R100 pre-paid credit.

With this special we will include the following:

• An Atcom Desktop VoIP Phone - AT-620P (R 979.26).
• Three months subscription to the ULS VoIP switch (R 239.40).
• R100 worth of talktime (R 100.00).
• Shipping (R 108.30).

The total for this would normally be R 1'426.96, but we are now shipping this for R 1'195.00 including VAT.

If you'd like to make use of this opportunity, please fill out the following form (you should receive an auto-reply email indicating that we have received your message), then make a payment of R1195 to our ABSA account (nr 5067756256) - reference of RT followed by the autoreply number - reply to the auto-response message with your proof of payment. We will ship the order as soon as possible and you should receive everything you need within 7 days.

Please note that by submitting this form you agree that you already have an existing internet connection (preferably 512Kbps or faster ADSL, albeit iBurst and 3G has also been known to work, Neotel too should be perfectly fine). It's generally (especially for commercial purposes) recommended to have a dedicated connection. The phone itself connects to your network using an ethernet cable, and requires DHCP to be available on your network.

SIP and or IAX/2 accounts

Ultimate Linux Solutions can provide any person or company with a SIP or IAX/2 account, whichever is their preference. This account costs R79.80/month and provides you access to our VoIP switch so that you can place VoIP calls.

You will need to supply your own phone, or if you prefer we can supply you with a range of phones at varying costs (please use the contact us page to inquire about this). Alternatively some newer phones now also have SIP support which means you can use these SIP accounts with your cellular phone!

With this account you will receive an 087 number which people can use to call you (rates vary between providers, but is at 82c/min from Telkom (including VAT).

Outbound call rates are comparative with the market and we provide the following primary rates (other rates are applicable for international calls):

Please note that we charge purely on a per-second basis whereas Telkom has minimum charges per call, and also bills in 30 second increments on Cellular calls.

Asterisk "corporate" Solutions

These VoIP systems provides for integration into many infrastructures, of primary concern in South-Africa is the Telkom network, where Ultimate Linux Solutions can make use of any of the technologies provided for connectivity (namely the standard analog lines, and ISDN - both BRI and PRI is supported). Further more, Ultimate Linux Solutions provides a VoIP break-out trunk where your calls can be routed over the Internet to our network and then branched out to it's destination from here, resulting in significant cost savings on national, cellular and international calls.

Ultimate Linux Solutions builds it's Voice-over-IP systems on top of the Linux-based open source package Asterisk, which is currently the industry standard where VoIP is concerned, it's a hightly flexible system, allowing one to configure it in ways that can only be limited by your imagination. The possibilities are endless. With basic features such as call recording, call transfer, voicemail, call forwarding, do-not-disturb, wait queues, music on hold, integrated voice prompts, caller-id and destination-id based routing, and many others already built in - it is by far one of the most feature rich PBX systems out there.

If you already have a switched ethernet computer network, there is no need to add additional cabling in order to add phones to your network. This is because the phones functions as agents on your existing computer network, and each phone provides a bridged ethernet port, meaning you can connect both your phone and your computer to the same network port as illustrated in the diagram to the top-right. There are also phones that can connect to your PBX server wirelessly if you only have a wireless network available.

Ultimate Linux Solutions can provide all the required hardware that you will need in order to implement a voice-over-ip system at competitive prices.