Asterisk is a complete telecommunications platform.

From caller ID to long distance, anything your telephone system can do, Asterisk can do better and cheaper.

Asterisk was designed to be able to do everything a traditional telephone system can do, and much, much more. Asterisk is, at it's heart, a PBX system. However, it includes a whole host of telephony features such as voicemail and call conferencing.

Asterisk creates a PBX that rivals the features and functionality of traditional telephony switches. Asterisk is cost-effective, low-maintenance, and flexible enough to handle all voice and data networking.

With Asterisk software, Telephony hardware, and a common PC, anyone can replace an existing switch or complement a PBX by adding VoiceOverIP, voicemail, conferencing, and many other capabilities. Asterisk integrates with analog phones and most standards-based IP telephone handsets and software.

Asterisk greatly reduces the cost of traditional telecommunication technology and operation, and moves voice over IP, VoIP, to the mainstream. Asterisk integrates a pre-existing analog telephone network with the benefits of IP technology, greatly reducing costs.