Voip Books

The following books have proved very useful to us. If you are in the early stages of deploying Asterisk or Trixbox they are worth buying as reference books.

• Switching to VoIP, written by Theodore Wallingford
  • Published June 2005 by O'Reilly.
  • Table of Contents and Sample Chapter
  • Further information at Amazon.co.uk

If you are considering, or have just started, using Asterisk and trixbox, Switching to VoIP is the first book you should buy.

• Asterisk: The Future of Telephony, written by Jared Smith, Jim Van Meggelen, Leif Madsen
  • Published September 2005 by O'Reilly
  • Table of Contents and Sample Chapter
  • Further information at Amazon.co.uk

Asterisk: The Future of Telephony is an excellent reference book once you start probing inside your Asterisk based system.

• Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project, written by John Q. Walker, Jeffrey T. Hicks.
  • Published 2004 by Cisco Press.
  • Table of Contents. The sample chapter covers Building a Business Case for VoIP
  • Further information at Amazon.co.uk

If you are looking at the wider picture of moving your company into VoIP or you are interested in the wider issues surrounding IP telephony then Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project will be useful.

Switching to Voip

To quote O’Reilly, “Switching to VoIP provides solutions for the most common VoIP migration challenges. So if you’re a network professional who is migrating from a traditional telephony system to a modern, feature-rich network, this book is a must-have. You’ll discover the strengths and weaknesses of circuit-switched and packet-switched networks, how VoIP systems impact network infrastructure, as well as solutions for common challenges involved with IP voice migrations. Among the challenges discussed and projects presented:

    * building a softPBX
    * configuring IP phones
    * ensuring quality of service
    * scalability
    * standards-compliance
    * topological considerations
    * coordinating a complete system ?switchover?
    * migrating applications like voicemail and directory services
    * retro-interfacing to traditional telephony
    * supporting mobile users
    * security and survivability
    * dealing with the challenges of NAT

To help you grasp the core principles at work, Switching to VoIP uses a combination of strategy and hands-on “how-to” that introduce VoIP routers and media gateways, various makes of IP telephone equipment, legacy analog phones, IPTables and Linux firewalls, and the Asterisk open source PBX software by Digium. You’ll learn how to build an IP-based or legacy-compatible phone system and voicemail system complete with e-mail integration while becoming familiar with VoIP protocols and devices.”

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Asterisk: The future of telephony

To quote O’Reilly, “Asterisk’s flexibility comes at a price, however: it’s not a simple system to learn, and the documentation is lacking. Asterisk: The Future of Telephony solves that problem by offering a complete roadmap for installing, configuring, and integrating Asterisk with existing phone systems. Our guide walks you through a basic dial plan step by step, and gives you enough working knowledge to set up a simple but complete system.”

This is a really good reference book, but if you are new to VoIP I recommend buying ‘Switching to VoIP’ first. However, if you are configuring you own Asterisk or trixbox system you really need both.

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Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project

The book covers:

    * VoIP Basics.
    * Building a Business Case for VoIP.
    * Planning for VoIP.
    * Do It Yourself, or Outsource?
    * Quality of Service and Tuning.
    * Ongoing VoIP Management.
    * Establishing VoIP SLAs.
    * VoIP Security.

There is a very useful sample chapter, Building a Business Case for VoIP. It points out some of the benefits that VoIP can provide and discusses how to analyze return on investment (ROI) for VoIP implementation and management. You can download the chapter from the Cisco Press website in PDF format.

If you are thinking about moving to VoIP or are managing a VoIP project and want to look at the wider issues then this book is recommended. Although published by Cisco Press it is supplier neutral and does not promote any particular line.

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