FreeSWITCH

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FreeSWITCH
Developed by	Many contributors
Latest release	1.0.0 / May 26, 2008
OS	Cross-platform
Platform	Unix-like, Windows, Sun Solaris, Mac OS X
Available in	multi-lingual
Development status	Active
Genre	VoIP software, Softswitch
License	Mozilla Public License (MPL)
Website	FreeSWITCH

FreeSWITCH is a free/open source software communications platform for the creation of voice and chat driven products and is released under the MPL free software license. It is capable of being embedded into other projects, as well as being used as a stand-alone application.

1 History
2 Design
3 Platform Support
4 Features
5 Limitations
6 Comparison with other telephony engines
7 See also
8 References
9 External links

[edit] History

The FreeSWITCH project was first announced in January 2006 at O'Reilly's ETEL Conference^[1]. In June 2007, FreeSWITCH was selected by Truphone for carrier grade use,^[2] and in August 2007, Gaboogie announced that it selected FreeSWITCH as its conferencing platform.^[3]

FreeSWITCH now approaches its first official release with the announcement of the first beta.^[4]

[edit] Design

According to the lead designer, Anthony Minessale, FreeSWITCH is intended to be a softswitch that is built on top of a solid, state-machine driven core.^[5] The stated goals of the project include stability, scalability, and abstraction.

An older version of the FreeSWITCH website showed a caveman hammering on a stone wheel, with a caption that read, “There are a lot of wheels, we might as well use them.” It seems the FreeSWITCH developers are intent on not reinventing any wheels that can come from other sources. One means of eliminating unnecessary complexity is to use freely available software libraries that perform needed functions. FreeSWITCH lists these software packages among its primary dependencies:^[6]

Apache Portable Runtime (APR and APR-Util)
SQLite – A lightweight implementation of a SQL engine
libresample – A library for real-time sampling rate conversions
PCRE – Perl Compatible Regular Expressions
libSRTP – An open-source implementation of the Secure Real-time Transport Protocol

FreeSWITCH is a modular application, where modules can extend the functionality of FreeSWITCH but the abstraction layer prevents inter-module dependency. The goal is to ensure that one module is not required to load another.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Platform Support

Sun Solaris 10 UNIX (SunStudio)
FreeBSD (gmake)
Mac OS X (gmake)
RHEL/CentOS GNU/Linux
Debian/Ubuntu GNU/Linux
Windows (Native)

[edit] Features

FreeSWITCH includes many modules which provide applications by default including conferencing, XML-RPC control of live calls, Interactive voice response (IVR), TTS/ASR (text to speech/automatic speech recognition), Public switched telephone network (PSTN) interconnection ability supporting both analogue and digital circuits, Voice over IP protocols including SIP, Inter-Asterisk eXchange, H.323, Jabber, GoogleTalk and others.^[7]

Applications using the FreeSWITCH library can be written in C/C++, Python, Perl, JavaScript using Mozilla's SpiderMonkey engine, Java and Microsoft .NET via Mono. In each case, FreeSWITCH exposes primitives for call control and IVR functionality for the programmer to use.^[8]

[edit] Limitations

FreeSWITCH has some limitations currently that could pose problems for certain installations. There is no GUI available for configuration and control of calls, although one is being developed ^[9]. Configuration is accomplished via XML which some may find daunting, although others have said that configuration, at least for certain aspects, is "a piece of cake".^[10]

[edit] Comparison with other telephony engines

Main article: Comparison of VoIP software

FreeSWITCH occupies a space between pure switches which simply route calls, such as GnuGK and SER, and those which are primarily PABXes or IVRs, such as Asterisk and its derivatives. FreeSWITCH provides building blocks from which applications - such as a PABX, a voicemail system, a conferencing system or a calling card - can be built using any of the supported languages.