IAX - What is it?

In simple terms this is the name of the protocol used to provide a wholesale connection between your Asterisk enabled server and our servers, which provides you access to bulk telephony and end termination services through our long distance routes to locations throughout the world.

It saves you money on telephone costs.

If your business needs access to a wholesale source for long distance within North America and beyond for resale purposes than IAX is the service for you. If you have a business with more than 3 lines and are poised to migrate to a VoIP based solution then you should be talking to us

Call us at 604 482-1190 to discuss what we can provide for you.

If you’re not certain if this is the technology for you, read over the IAX2 primer below for more technical information.

The Creation of IAX

The IAX2 Protocol or Inter-Asterisk Exchange Protocol was created by Mark Spencer for Asterisk for VoIP signalling. The protocol sets up internal sessions and these sessions can use whichever codec they want for voice transmission. The Inter-Asterisk Exchange protocol essentially provides control and transmission of streaming media over IP (Internet Protocol) networks. IAX is extremely flexible and can be used with any type of streaming media including video however it is mainly designed for control of IP voice calls. IAX’s design was based on many common control and transmission standards today including Session Initiation Protocol (SIP, which is the most common), Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP) and Real-time Transfer Protocol (RTP).

The Basics of IAX2

IAX2 is a very robust and full-featured ( yet simple ) protocol. It is agnostic to codecs and a number of streams, meaning that it can be used as a transport for virtually any type of data. This capability will be useful as videophones become common.

The primary goal for IAX is to minimize bandwidth used in media transmissions with particular attention drawn to control and individual voice calls.

The basic structure of IAX is that it multiplexes signalling and multiple media streams over a single UDP (user datagram protocol) stream between two computers. IAX is a binary protocol designed to reduce overhead especially in regards to voice streams. Bandwidth efficiency in some places is sacrificed in exchange for bandwidth efficiency for individual voice calls. One UDP stream is easier to setup for users that are behind a firewall.