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Ascom, a leading wireless telephone and messaging systems company, announced today it has expanded its relationship with Digium, Inc., the Asterisk (News - Alert) Company, to offer all of Digium’s Asterisk-based appliances.

 

Under the deal, Ascom (News - Alert) is adding Digium’s larger-capacity Asterisk Appliance 60 (AA60) and AA350 telephony platform to its branded product line. The company plans to sell the products under the Ascom Analog VoIP Gateway (News - Alert) name in North America and in select markets, the firm said.

 

The latest arrangement builds off of Ascom’s previous relationship with Digium. Ascom has been offering the Digium AA50 telephony platform for more than a year. Ascom offers solutions for hospitals, manufacturing, retail and hotels and has more than 75,000 systems installed at major companies worldwide.

 

Asterisk is the most widely deployed open source telephony software. The software provides standard PBX (News - Alert) features, as well as acts as a “gateway” extending the reach of networks or adding support for different types of devices. Under Ascom’s application, Asterisk acts as a VoIP gateway for the standards-based wireless handsets, the company said.

 

“Our SMB customers have benefitted from the Ascom Analog VoIP Gateway’s ease and cost efficient migration possibility for more than a year,” said Tom McKearney, executive vice president of marketing and business development at Ascom (US), Inc., in a statement. “Digium’s solution has been a perfect complement to the rest of our product line, so we’ve chosen to add additional products in the Asterisk Appliance family.”

 

The Digium appliances, which will be sold as Ascom Analog VoIP Gateway, provide users analog connectivity from legacy PBXs for the Ascom FreeNET VoWiFi and Freeset IP-DECT (News - Alert) wireless systems. The Ascom FreeNET VoWiFi and Freeset IP-DECT systems offer customers two radio technology choices when installing a standard-based, on-site wireless solution.

 

Bill Miller, vice president of product management at Digium, said Asterick offers Ascom a cost-effective way to link analog and wireless systems together.

 

“Ascom’s decision to incorporate the entire Asterisk Appliance family into its own product line and to take it out to customers in select markets is gratifying to the team at Digium,” Miller said in a statement.

 

The announcement signals growing popularity of Asterick. As TMCnet reported, the Asterisk open source telephony software was downloaded 1.5 million times in 2008, a 50 percent increase than the previous year.

 

The news comes after Digium recently introduced support subscriptions for its software, TMCnet reported. Despite the recession, Digium has reportedly seen a rise in the number of Asterick downloads

 

Recently, Ascom added ApplianX DPNSS-to-Q.SIG Gateway to its product offering. According to TMCnet, the addition lets the firm offer customers another solution for integrating to IP-DECT and Voice over WiFi systems.