What is Asterisk?

Asterisk is an open source PBX software that allows attached telephones to make calls to one another and to connect to other telephone services like the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). One major plus of using Asterisk is that its flexibility is only limited to the imagination of the user.
 
Benefits of Asterisk in the office

1. Asterisk offers great features at a fraction of the cost of the traditional PBXs.
2. Because the connection is made through the Internet and not the phone line, employees that work remotely can be connected directly to the office PBX through their Internet connections.
3. Large businesses that have locations in several geographical areas will be able to connect various offices over the network. This eliminates the huge cost of conference calls.
4. Asterisk phone systems allow every extension to have its own voicemail box. These voicemail boxes are connected to the employee's email accounts, so no one will ever miss a message again.
5. Asterisk supports a variety of VOIP protocols. Among the protocols it accepts are MGCP, H.323, and SIP. The program can connect IP phones to the traditional phone line easily. This flexibility makes the system easy to integrate into established businesses.
6. Customers will have shorter wait times because the call queues allow agents to monitor the queue while they take the incoming calls, so they can shorten the calls if needed.