fwdOut shows how to configure your Asterisk PBX to allow calls to PSTN phones via other Asterisk servers who have agreed to share their PSTN connections. IN return, you have to make your PSTN connection available for other users to call your local area. You get credit when someone uses your access point, this allows [...]

I downloaded Asterisk@Home from http://asteriskathome.sourceforge.net
Note, in 2006 Asterisk@Home was renamed to trixbox
Its a large download, so allow plently of time if you have a slow Internet connection. You can install it on an old PC, or use a virtual machine. I have VMware, but you could also use the free VMWare Player and QEMU, or the free [...]

There are a couple of ways to try Asterisk
The easiest is to download an ISO of a live Linux CD with Asterisk from AstLinux at http://www.astlinux.org
Burn the ISO to CD-R (or compact flash) and reboot and you’ll have a working Asterisk system. You’ll need a USB or flash card to save your configuration, or you [...]

Itoh-san was the first to tell me about the open-source PBX system called Asterisk. His company at the time was seriously thinking about changing from their existing Cisco IP phone network to Asterisk.
Asterisk 1.2 released on Nov 17 2005. Available from http://www.asterisk.org/
 

This article shows how to run Asterisk on Windows by using the free VMware Player and QEMU emulator with the Asterisk@Home ISO (500Mb )

http://voipspeak.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=45&Itemid=28
Btw you can download OS images preinstalled with a couple of applications for QEMU from http://www.oszoo.org/

If you have two softphones that you want to receive calls from the internet, set the ports as below then set your router to forward to each phone.

X-Lite 1:

Listen SIP Port: 5060
Listen RTP Port: 8000
Forward port 5060 to this PC.

X-Lite 2:

Listen SIP Port: 5061
Listen RTP Port: 8006
Forward port 5061 to this second PC.

If you have [...]

If your PC has speakers and a microphone, you can make phone calls by downloading a soft phone. Or you could replace your microphone with a USB phone, a phone that plugs into your PCs USB port.

Download software phones from SJLabs at http://www.sjlabs.com/sjp.html
There are packages for Telephony providers such as Vonage, VoiceGlo, Free World Dialup, [...]

The main Asterisk website, put together by the web developers at Digium

http://www.asterisk.org/
Astrisk documentation project
http://www.asteriskdocs.org
http://www.asteriskguru.com
A wiki about all things VOIP
http://www.voip-info.org
VOIPSpeak has news and articles all about VOIP, including useful articles on step-by-step configuration of Asterisk@Home and building your own PBX
http://voipspeak.net
Digium provides hardware for connecting phones and phone lines to your PC, and suppport for Asterisk PBX.
http://www.digium.com
They [...]

fwdOut shows how to configure your Asterisk PBX to allow calls to PSTN phones via other Asterisk servers who have agreed to share their PSTN connections. InN return, you have to make your PSTN connection available for other users to call your local area. You get credit when someone uses your access point, this allows [...]