Design, Implementation and Validation of an Open Source IP-PBX/VoIP Gateway SoC

The telephony world is consistently moving to the transmission of voice through packet networks, so as to unify data and voice and to enable the provisioning of new services in a less costly manner. Service providers are offloading the task of converting analog voice to VoIP to the end-points. This allows the ISPs and ITSPs to reduce their costs and increase the uniformity of their interfaces with their clients. In this paper we present an IP-PBX/VoIP Gateway system based on a single SoC that performs all the required processing. This SoC includes a CPU for hosting a full-fledged operating system and user applications, as well as a DSP subsystem for voice processing. The system targets the low density market of home gateways and SME IP-PBXs, where cost is the main factor. We prove it is feasible to implement a 2-4 channel IP-PBX/VoIP gateway on a SoC based purely on both software and hardware provided by the open-source community, reducing both upfront and final product costs thus allowing new players into the market.