FusionPBX for ex-Trixbox users

Since this is the start of a new blog I should set out my premise for doing this.

For several years now I have been a dedicated user of Trixbox PBX but I have reached the point where I need to change. The main factors being that there is a bug in the present version of Trixbox (and no easy upgrade path to the next version) that prevents DTMF tones from being correctly interpreted at a remote destination and therefore complicates the use of telephone banking systems and conference call systems which require DTMF entries, and there is a lot of stuff that you need to do at the OS level if you want things to work smoothly (eg. sending email).

So I looked around and liked the concept of FreeSwitch and looked for a GUI for it and discovered FusionPBX. FusionPBX is well presented and actively maintained. It seemed easy enough to use and so I burnt myself a Centos ISO CD and got started.

But more on that later. There is one more thing to say first. FusionPBX has capabilities to allow you to program the dial strings in the same format as Asterisk. I will not be making use of these features as my intention is to learn FusionPBX and to use it the way it is intended. So as I go through this I'll be documenting how to do things the FusionPBX way. That said, I chose the Centos version of FusionPBX because I was comfortable with it, having used it for so long with Trixbox.

So since we're moving to a new and fresh VOIP environment I thought I'd choose a blog layout that looks new and fresh, and slightly out of focus.  We'll say that the out of focusness of it represents the fact that right now fusionpbx looks good but is out of focus because we don't understand it yet.  And no, I'm not going to be changing the background to a more focussed one as we progress for two reasons (a) it is too much trouble and (b) there are always going to be new things we can learn about FusionPBX and new things we can make it do, so it will never fully be in focus.