On January 5th, Linksys announced the SPA 9000. This is an IP PBX solution. In a nutshell, PBX is what most businesses utilize for internal phone systems. It allows you to put calls on hold with music, route to extensions, etc. This solution has 4 jacks – 2 for POTS (plain old telephone) and 2 IP jacks. This is a timely announcement because I had just been looking into the linux based solution, Asterisk. Asterisk is a PBX software management system for your business. It is produced by Digium – who also produce cards that perform a similar function as the Linksys solution. So, if you want to do straight VOIP (voice over IP) – no problem.
If you want to incorporate POTS – again, no problem. And Asterisk can do all sorts of complex routing. It also has music on hold. You can set up dialing rules to make your calls as cheap as possible.
