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== All VoIP packages on Debian ==

A good place to start looking for VoIP packages on Debian is the [[Team/VoIP]] page.

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Unified communications refers to the convergence of communication technologies, in particular, email, instant messaging, voice telephony and video conferencing.

In the telecoms domain, the word `convergence' is often used on it's own to refer to unified communications.

The Debian platform offers:

  • a range of server/infrastructure packages to support unified communications
  • a range of user applications (for instance, email, chat and softphone)
  • infrastructure packages to support unified communications initiatives (for example, DHCP and TFTP servers for booting VoIP phones)

Federated VoIP

Federated VoIP takes the Unified Communications concept one step further: routing of any type of session (VoIP, chat, video) between any two arbitrary domains - for example, from one company to another, or from a private account to a business.

True Federated VoIP works like email. Email (SMTP) relies on the use of MX records to discover the mail handling server for any arbitrary domain - the sender of an email never has to configure any routes manually. Federated VoIP uses DNS SRV records in the same way the SMTP uses MX records.

Getting on-board the Federated VoIP movement simply requires:

  • setting up some kind of server for SIP, Jabber or both (see the Quick start below)
  • putting an SSL/TLS certificate on the server
  • setting up the DNS SRV records so that people can find your server

Email does not require SSL/TLS, but many people consider it a mandatory part of Federated VoIP, partly as a way of avoid the issues of forgery, impersonation and spam that plague the email network. A single SSL/TLS certificate can be used for both SIP and Jabber.

Quick start (server)

The easiest way to build a unified communications service with support for federated VoIP is to start with these two packages:

Both packages offer:

  • a convenient web interface
  • choice of flat files or MySQL database backend (for user credentials)
  • full internet connectivity for Federated VoIP
    • repro also supports ENUM for translating phone numbers to SIP addresses, this works out of the box

Once repro and jabber are running, other packages like Asterisk and FreeSWITCH can be considered for more advanced functionality (e.g. phone queues, DTMF-based menus, voicemail)

Quick start (user experience)

The empathy chat application installed by default with the Gnome desktop offers a first class Jabber/XMPP experience.

The ekiga softphone package offers a convenient SIP softphone.


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All VoIP packages on Debian

A good place to start looking for VoIP packages on Debian is the Team/VoIP page.


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All VoIP packages on Debian

A good place to start looking for VoIP packages on Debian is the ?Team/VoIP page.


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