Digium offers support of open source IP PBX

Digium announced at VoiceCon Orlando that it will support subscriptions for businesses using Asterisk, the open source IP PBX.

The company, which formerly supported only commercial versions of Asterisk that it sold as packages, now offers four levels of service ranging in price from US$595 for a year to $7,995 for a year. A three-year commitment comes with a 10% discount.

Digium offers Asterisk for free download, but until now users had to rely on the open source community or other vendors for help.

The company says customers asked for the service, claiming that their CIOs were interested in the cost savings Asterisk could offer, but leery of lack of support.

The Level 1 service provides coverage for a single PBX server, two support cases per year, discounts on both training and attendance at the Asterisk conference, and response time of 48 hours. The top-tier Level 4 service includes coverage of 10 servers, unlimited support cases, an hour of consultation time and a response time of four hours on calls.

Customers can upgrade their Level 3 and 4 services to add coverage for more servers for US$495 and $395 each, respectively. Level 1 through 3 customers can buy additional support cases for $295 each. The services come without SLAs.

The service is available now.