System information
Asterisk, you can make voice-driven menus and IVR systems in record time! For more
information, see http://www.lumenvox.com.
High-Fidelity Voice
As we gain access to more and more bandwidth, it becomes less and less easy to un-
derstand why we still use low-fidelity codecs. Many people do not realize that Skype
provides higher fidelity than a telephone; it’s a large part of the reason why Skype has
a reputation for sounding so good.
If you were ever to phone CNN, wouldn’t you love to hear James Earl Jones’s mellif-
luous voice saying “This is CNN,” instead of some tinny electronic recording? And if
you think Allison Smith
*
sounds good through the phone, you should hear her in
person!
In the future, we will expect, and get, high-fidelity voice through our communications
equipment.
As more and more hardware vendors start building support for high-fidelity voice into
their VoIP hardware, you’ll see more support in Asterisk for making better-than-PSTN-
quality calls.
Video
While most of this book focuses on audio, video is also supported in many ways within
Asterisk. Video support is not complete, however. The problem is not so much one of
functionality as one of bandwidth and processing power. Asterisk 1.10 is expected to
contain better support for handling media, including video.
The challenge of videoconferencing
The concept of videoconferencing has been around since the invention of the cathode
ray tube. The telecom industry has been promising a videoconferencing device in every
home for decades.
As with so many other communications technologies, if you have videoconferencing
in your house, you are probably running it over the Internet, with a simple, inexpensive
webcam. Still, it seems that people see videoconferencing as a bit gimmicky. Yes, you
can see the person you’re talking to, but there’s something missing.
* Allison Smith is The Voice of Asterisk—it is her voice in all of the system prompts. To have Allison produce
your own prompt, simply visit http://www.theivrvoice.com.
588 | Chapter 27: Asterisk: A Future for Telephony