Asterisk channels
Asterisk Channels
What is a Channel?
A channel is a connection which brings in a call to the Asterisk PBX. A channel could be a connection to an ordinary telephone handset or an ordinary telephone line, or to a logical call (like an Internet phone call). Asterisk makes no distinction between " FXO " and " FXS " style channels (that is, it doesn't distinguish between telephone lines and telephones). Every call is placed or received on a distinct channel.Channel Types
Asterisk provides the following channel types in the standard distribution:- Agent: ACD Agent channel
- Console: Linux console client driver for sound cards (using OSS or ALSA)
- H.323: An older VOIP protocol
- IAX and IAX2: Inter-Asterisk Exchange protocol, Asterisk's own VOIP protocol
- MulticastRTP: Broadcast audio outside the context of a call (new in Asterisk 1.8)
- Local: Loopback into another context
- MGCP: Media Gateway Control Protocol, another VOIP protocol
- mISDN: mISDN channel
- Modem: Confusingly, this is for connecting ISDN lines, not for use with modems. Deprecated.
- Asterisk NBS channels: using Network Broadcast Sound
- phone: Linux Telephony channel
- SIP: Session Initiation Protocol, the most common VOIP protocol
- Skinny: A driver for Cisco Skinny Client Control Protocol (a VOIP protocol)
- Gtalk: Google Talk Channel driver. To be replaced by Asterisk Jingle channels
- Asterisk VOFR channels: voice over frame relay Adtran style
- VPB: For connecting ordinary telephone and telephone lines using Voicetronix cards
- Zap: For connecting ordinary telephones and telephone lines using Digium cards. Also for TDMoE and for zaptelBRI
Channel drivers offering other technologies can be optionally installed:
- Celliax let Asterisk manage GSM and CDMA cellular phones, and Skype calls to/from cellphones
- Bluetooth: Allows the use of bluetooth devices to change routing - see trunk Asterisk mobile channels.
- CAPI: ISDN CAPI channel
- vISDN: vISDN channel (native BRI channel for HFC chipsets)
- SCCP: An alternate Skinny/SCCP channel implementations
- Sirrix: ISDN BRI for Sirrix cards (with optional ISDN encryption)
- UNISTIM: Nortel Unistim channel
- Unicall: Replacement for zaptel, with R2 support
- SS7: SS7 (ISUP on MTP2/3) channel
- NMS: NMS Communications Open Access channel
Configuration
- Digium interface cards: You need to have installed and configured the Zaptel driver to permit Asterisk to use your Digium card. Asterisk accesses Digium cards via Zap channels. Configure these in zapata.conf.
- Voicetronix interface cards: You need to have installed their device driver. Asterisk accesses Voicetronix cards using vpb channels. Configure these invpb.conf.
- SIP phones are accessed via SIP channels. Configure these in sip.conf.
- IAX phones are accessed via IAX channels. Configure these in iax.conf.
- Some specific VOIP telephones may require special configuration. See Configuration Notes for Specific Phones.
Channel Capabilities: What capabilities are supported by what channels?
Capability | IAX | SIP | Skinny | SCCP | Voice | Zaptel | MGCP | chan_capi | chan_misdn | UNISTIM |
Early Voice | ? | Y | ? | Y | ? | ? | ? | Y | Y | N |
Call Transfer | ? | Y #/Native | ? | Y | ? | ? | Y | ? | Y #/Native | Native |
DND | ? | Y | ? | Y | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
Receive CallerID | Y | Y | ? | Y | ? | Y | Y | Y | Y | ? |
Send CallerID | Y | Y | ? | Y | ? | Y | Y | Y | Y | ? |
Group Pickup | ? | Y *8# | ? | Y *8 /native | ? | Y *8 | Y *8 | Y native | Y *8 | *8 (untested) |
Directed Call Pickup | ? | ? | ? | Y native | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | Native |
Call Waiting | ? | Y | ? | Y | ? | ? | Y | ? | ? | Native |
Disable CallerID | ? | Y | ? | Y native | ? | ? | ? | ? | Y | ? |
Call Forward | ? | Y | ? | Y native | ? | ? | ? | Y call deflection | Y call deflection | ? |
Three way calling | ? | Y | N | Y | ? | ? | ? | Y | ? | N |
ADSI Screen Phones | N | N | N | ? | ? | Y | ? | ? | ? | n/a |
'Native' indicates that this function is provided by core Asterisk rather than the channel driver or device.
Feel free to press "Edit" and complete this table.