Asterisk is a SoftSwitch?

Hi, can be * compared as a Softswitch or not.

Which are diferences ?

Thanks everybody

I guess asterisk is more of a PBX than a softswitch. In my understanding a PBX is something that is installed at your office, opposed to softswitch which is installed at the office of a telephone company. PBX is more about features (voicemail, call forwarding … etc) and softswitch is more about productivity (reencoding and remultiplexing the streams as fast as possible).
I might be terribly wrong though :smile: Someone correct me if I am.

i think facha is right on that, ie PBX provides features and soft switch JUST switches and routes calls, nothing else.

Asterisk is both to a degree, however many users with high call volumes put OpenSER (sip express router, a softswitch) in front of asterisk to take the SIP switching load off *.

Well, i personally have seen many softswitches built with asterisk, they also have had a billing application all in one, both for wholesale or retail(calling cards, pinfree, and other things). So to answer your question, you can build a softswitch based on asterisk.