Watch out Vonage! Asterisk might be hot on your tail! Based on the information offered at Linux Magazine, Asterisk aims to be the ‘next big thing’ in telecommunications while maintaining its Open Source roots.

The real punch to the whole thing is that it runs off of Linux to boot. Costs to get everything you need are pretty reasonable and I am actually looking into it myself.

From caller ID to long distance, anything your phone can do, Asterisk (http://www.asterisk.org) can do better — and cheaper. Asterisk, an open source telephony project sponsored by Digium (http://www.digium.com), greatly reduces the cost of traditional telecommunication technology and operation, and moves Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) into the mainstream. With VoIP, telephone calls are transmitted over an Internet connection, eliminating long distance charges and the need for a traditional proprietary telephone service plan. If you own a telephone, heed the call to Asterisk.

Because Asterisk is based on VoIP, Asterisk provides an inexpensive telecommunication solution perfect for a small business, a home office, or even an entire household. And because Asterisk has the ability to communicate seamlessly between VoIP and the public switched telephone network using any of the most popular codecs and protocols, it allows for high voice quality at no toll costs. Also, Asterisk’s freely and widely available open source code can replace a traditional hardware PBX. Finally, unlike most VoIP telephone systems, Asterisk integrates with a wide range of hardware and standards-based telephony equipment.