Asterisk as an IVR only?

#1

Hello All,

I have a pretty simple query here : How good is asterisk as an IVR ONLY? i.e if I don’t need any of its PBX functionality…

I have to setup a 4 PRI (120 lines) IVR for a Primary Rate Service company. The basic functionality required right now is
[ul]Recoding a message,
playing it back,
over-writing it,
saving a keypress (DTMF) as a numeric value in the database (for polling/surveys),
looking up a number entered(DTMF) in the database and playing text using text to speech. [/ul]

I would really appreciate if someone can help me out at the earliest as I have to get the system live in a couple of week’s time.

  • Aamir
#2

Asterisk works great for an IVR. Everything else you are looking to do is possible also.

#3

We have a couple different applications using Asterisk almost exactly the way you describe. It works great!

#4

one question about it i cant get i to play my message. what am i doing wrong. i cant get my phones to ring they go to voice mail. My boss dropped this on my lap and its been fun but tricky.

Any help would be great.

Mark

#5

Thanks a lot for your quick replies. I really appreciate your help, need a bit more though :smiley::

My client insists on using Dialogic PRI cards. Can you please guide me on the following:
[ul]1. Which OS is best for IVR only functionality? (I am thinking of Fedora…)
2. Compatibility issues of Dialogic cards with Fedora and Asterisk…
3. Which Text to Speech Addon to use?
4. Can dual processor dual core Xeon box handle 4 PRIs for a simple IVR call flow (Voice Recording, playing back and polls)?
5. I have telecom and software background, but am new to IVRs and Asterisk. Any comments on me being able to accomplish my task within 2 week’s time.
6. The IVR needs to be live with all 120 lines connected at launch. Any clues / concerns regarding performance and uptime (considering my background and time to launch)? [/ul]
Thanks in advance

  • Aamir
#6

Dialogic is the worst choice with Asterisk IMHO. Why are they demanding this? Maybe they just need to be educated that they may pay a fraction of the price for Digium cards and have the same capabilities by using Asterisk.

You are asking for a world of hurt with Dialogic.

#7

[quote=“MuppetMaster”]Dialogic is the worst choice with Asterisk IMHO. Why are they demanding this? Maybe they just need to be educated that they may pay a fraction of the price for Digium cards and have the same capabilities by using Asterisk.

You are asking for a world of hurt with Dialogic.[/quote]
I see, well, can you please point me to some link where I can get some material to educate my client? ( and myself too :smiley:).
Thanks

#8

i’ll chime in, because our old PBX used Televantage with Dialogic boards. Not only did asterisk save us around $750,000 a year in licensing, but we should be able to sell all of the old dialogic equipment, which will pay for the ENTIRE asterisk conversion about three or four times over.

we also were able to consolidate six racks down to 3, and get rid of an entire BANK of patch panels, almost doubling the usable floor space in our datacenter.

not only that, we have a stable and expandable system that is MUCH easier to manage, and doesn’t require a reboot every night to stay functioning (yes, our old PBX’s were rebooted every night, something that took the better part of an hour). With asterisk, if we need to add another user, we just add them…with the other system, we had to patch over to their desk, add the account, make sure our licensing was balanced out…it was a pain.

let me put it this way - i can’t imagine having to go back to dialogic boards, for ANY reason.

FYI, we’re a 400 seat call center, and we do about 60K calls per day.