AstriCon Europe 2005 to be held in Madrid in June

For Immediate Release

Media Contacts:

Olle E. Johansson
IPsando
+1 816-278-1035
+46 70 593 68 51 oej@ipsando.com

Janine Savarese
MRB Public Relations
+1 732-758-1100 Ext. 103
jsavarese@mrb-pr.com

AstriCon Europe 2005 to be held in Madrid in June

Larger crowds expected as Asterisk, the first open source PBX, continues market proliferation
STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN and HUNTSVILLE, AL — (April 14, 2005) –IPsando, an information technology company focusing on Internet Protocol (IP) communications consulting and Digium, the creator of open source telephony, today announced that AstriCon Europe 2005, the first of two annual Asterisk user conferences, will be held June 15-17, 2005 at the Auditorium Madrid Hotel in Madrid, Spain. In response to the large number of attendees at AstriCon 2004, IPsando and Digium selected the Auditorium Madrid Hotel, the largest urban hotel in Europe, to ensure that AstriCon Europe 2005 would be able to host the large number of telecommunications executives and open-source users expected to attend the conference.
Boasting more than 200,000 users in over 200 countries, Asterisk is changing the way businesses purchase telecommunications services and how carriers build their voice over IP (VoIP) solutions by providing a complete business- and carrier-class PBX solution based on a Linux computer.
“Asterisk has taken the telecommunications industry by storm — initially winning favor with Linux enthusiasts, but now gaining traction among telecommunications carriers and enterprises large and small,” said Steven Sokol, CEO of IPsando and AstriCon’s organizer. “As a result, we wanted to make sure that we are providing our Asterisk users with regular forums to discuss the future in open source telephony.”

The three-day conference will open with a keynote address by Mark Spencer, president of Digium, and consist of a day of tutorials, including three tracks ranging from beginner to expert , a conference day showcasing innovations, strategies and business cases, followed by a one-day developer’s summit. In addition to the conference, there will also be an exhibition, with vendors and service providers that work with Asterisk.
Topics to be addressed include:
• Integrating the PBX with IT Infrastructure: Asterisk for the Enterprise
• VoIP Migration In-a-Box: Asterisk for Service Providers
• Lower Cost, More Flexibility: Asterisk for Call Centers
• Your VoIP Swiss Army Knife: Asterisk for Developers
• Managing Your Asterisk PBX: From the CLI to the GUI

Registration is open at https://www.AstriCon.net/europe/. An Early Bird discount of 20% is available through April 25, 2005. AstriCon is also accepting potential sponsorship and speaking applications for all AstriCon shows (including AstriCon Fall in the U.S.) through the AstriCon website http://www.AstriCon.net/europe/speakers/. Please include the proposed presentation title, a description of the presentation, as well as speaker bios and contact information.

About Asterisk
Code for Asterisk, originally written by Mark Spencer of Digium Inc., has been contributed from open source software engineers around the world. It supports a wide range of TDM protocols for the handling and transmission of voice over traditional telephony interfaces. It also supports US and European standard signaling types used in standard business phone systems, allowing it to bridge between next-generation voice-data integrated networks and existing infrastructure. Using the Inter-Asterisk eXchange (IAX) Voice over IP protocol, Asterisk merges voice and data traffic seamlessly across disparate networks. While using packet voice, it is possible to send data such as URL addresses and images in-line with voice traffic, allowing advanced integration of information.

About Digium
Digium is the creator and primary developer of Asterisk, the industry’s first open source PBX. Used in combination with Digium’s PCI telephony interface cards, Asterisk offers a strategic, highly cost-effective approach to voice and data transport over TDM, switched, and Ethernet architectures.

Digium solutions reduce the costs of traditional TDM and VoIP implementations through open source, standards-based software and next-generation gateways, media servers, and application servers. Digium hardware supports traditional voice protocols, including PRI, RBS, FXS, FXO, E&M, Feature Group D, Groundstart, Loopstart, and GR-303. Data protocols include PPP, Cisco HDLC, and Frame Relay. For packet voice, Asterisk supports IAX (Inter-Asterisk eXchange), SIP, MGCP, Cisco Skinny (SCCP), and H.323 VoIP protocols.

The Digium logo, Digium, Asterisk, and the Asterisk logo are trademarks of Digium Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

About IPsando
IPsando is an information technology company focusing on Internet Protocol (IP) communications consulting and in particular Asterisk, the industry’s first open source PBX.
Founded by Olle E. Johansson and Steven M. Sokol, both well-known contributors to Asterisk and coordinators of AstriCon, the company runs conferences and training seminars, develops software and provides consultancy services. IPsando’s AstriCon training “Introduction to Asterisk” is a five day boot-camp that delivers the knowledge and insights needed learn, implement and produce Asterisk solutions.
Additional information is available at www.ipsando.com or by emailing info@ipsando.com.

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