My partner recently asked if I could receive a FAX for her. Sadly, I had to tell her that, while I can send faxes, I couldn't easily receive them. I do have a multifunction printer with FAX capability, but I have not designed my "Receptionist" dialplan to handle incoming faxes. And so, admitting that failing, I skulked back to my cave, and did some research.
With the telephony hardware installed and configured, and Asterisk in place, I found myself at the point where I could turn to my favourite topic: the software. And, even at the simplest, I had a lot of software to keep me busy. Luckily enough, I had the time.
Recently, I participated in a discussion about using Asterisk on the Raspberry Pi, to provide a call filtering facility for a home installation. My correspondant had tried to set up a Raspberry Pi and VoIP handset to handle phone calls such that incoming calls would pass through a whitelist/blacklist, promoting good callers and damning bad callers, while directing outgoing calls to their intended destinations.
In the year and a half since I wrote IP04 Progress, I've expanded my simple telephone system into something a little more comprehensive. I had three goals in mind; to provide that "complete accounting" of incoming and outgoing calls that my provider wouldn't supply, to manage the incoming calls so that I would be less bothered by telemarketers and other annoying callers, and to position the IP04 as a part of a much larger home automation project.
I've slowly worked my way towards all that, in fits and starts, and am ready to share some of my progress.
Since I wrote my "IP04 and Me" blog post, I've made remarkable progress. My home phones now run completely under the control of the IP04, and I have that virtual receptionist I've been working towards.
