Hello. I’m a software engineer, I can usually fill in the blanks, but I am new to voip, foip, etc and there are so many gaps in information Ive read and so many acronyms Ive not been able to solidly understand how it all works. Im hoping you all can help.
First, the scenario:
I have a product. We currently use 2 3rd party service.
Twilio - we make calls from the web application via Twilio API to call normal 10ds and playback pre-recorded audio, then take a response from the end party, i.e, “press 1, 2 or 3”. Twilio returns what they pressed and we process.
GreenFax - We use an api to send html and some other information (header, etc), Greenfax turns it into a fax and sends it off to a fax number.
We would like to replace these services eventually with our own solution, either a server(s) or hosted to get to a flat fee and manageable solution. An open source solution is preferred. Ive found Asterisk, FreePBX, Elastix and some others, read through some information on voip/foip, but overall its either not clear whats required, or the information is more for call centers and the like where you would have phones attached.
I just need API->Fax/Call->Endpoint 10d
I thought it was as simple as a server, with a piece of software like the above, and the server having some sort of card hooked up to phone lines? internet connection?
If anyone could please enlighten and fill in the gaps, I’m happy to provide what I can from my end to further explain the goal as well.
Example. Currently we pay 7 cents per fax page and 2 cents per call minute to these services. We have looked into the fax service first. Right off the bat, moving to FaxAge we pay a flat fee of $65/month for essentially 5000 faxes per month. Much less expensive. But if I already had hardware and open source software, wouldnt the other option be paying x/month for phone lines or connection to do things ourselves?
Thanks! 