This book is focused on the key elements of telephony and the migration to VOIP – primarily as a cost saving measure. The first 2/3 of the book deal with the VOIP technology – as an adjunct to and eventual replacement for traditional (legacy) telephony. By the 2/3 point, the author is talking about cost analysis, benefits and justification.

I would more likely title this book “VOIP for management”. This is not a put-down or insult, as the book’s primary objective is to educate the mostly non-technical person on what VOIP is, and how it might best fit into an existing picture, and one moving forward.

Being primarily technical myself, this book was good as a preliminary introduction to a subject that I wasn’t familiar with – but I immediately moved on to the O’Reilly books on the subject – “Switching to VOIP” by Ted Wallingford and “Asterisk” (Leif Madsen, et al). Someone who is responsible for managing such a transition would find it much more useful than I did.

Also, Tech PRose was kind enough to add Signal Noise as a favorite telecom blog.

Duffbert of Duffbert’s Musings said of the book, “You have no reason in terms of cost for not diving right in.”

An Amazon reviewer wrote, “I would recommend it for anyone looking to deploy VoIP.”

ZDNet UK wrote, “This is a valuable book for anyone considering moving their telephone system to VoIP.” So order your copy today!

In the time that’s lapsed since VoIP Hacks was published, many of the contributors have done pretty amazing things. Top of mind is Brian Degenhardt, who now works for Digium, vis a vis his role at Switchvox, one of the top Asterisk PBX makers anywhere.

Anyway, here’s a snippet from the review:

Before reading this book I would not have considered putting an IP-PBX on an ADSL link. The author’s idea of putting a Sangoma ADLS modem in the Linux box with PPPoE client software and controlling the modem queue is nothing short of genius. Then to top it off with the AstShape QoS scripts and the QoS monitoring tools, this book is an absolute bargain. With these tools I’ll not only know if the ADSL connection is capable of supporting VoIP service, but I’ll know exactly why. Much better than cutting over to the VoIP system and later discovering the problems. The whole book is just full of great ideas.

Submitted by Dave Rowtree

This is pretty much essential reading for our new staff over in the UK. It first gives a good overview of VoIP in general for home and business, then develops how to use Linux as a PBX. It also covers in detail how to replace the voice circuit and call signaling to VoIP.

There are a few chapters on potential troubles with a troubleshooting guide (the most referenced pages in our copy!)

The references are slightly out of date, although this is more an indication of the fast moving nature of the business. IT includes the usual suspects of Skype, MSN and iChat, although no mention of GoogleTalk.

Throughout the book it stresses conversations are part of what humans do to feel human, and how we communicate can be transferred to VoIP principles

-Tom Payne, Maintel – Phone system maintenance & installation (http://www.maintel.co.uk/)