Netgear has just announced the launch of their new Open Source Wireless-G Router (WGR614L), which is supported by the open source community at myopenrouter.com.

What this does is allow the end user to install 3rd party applications and firmware on the router. This would allow you to do all sorts of things - customized routing rules such as turning ports off for your children after bedtime, logging surfing activity to a database, checking URLs against a list of restricted sites maintained on the internet, the list is endless.

But one really cool thing you can do is to run the open source Asterisk pbx on it. Yep, you heard me right… a pbx running on your router! Obviously, the router has no phone jacks, so all inbound and outbound phone connections would have to be Voice Over IP (VOIP), but that’s easy enough, as there are plenty of VOIP companies that sell origination and termination SIP accounts (for inbound and outbound lines).

So, just buy a router, install the appropriate firmware on it, upload asterisk to it, and configure away. In no time, you’ll have your own software based pbx at home or in the office. Now all you have to do is get some SIP phones for extensions, configure them in asterisk, and start talking!

MyOpenRouter.com has some great tutorials on how to setup the firmware, and here’s a great article on installing Asterisk on the Netgear WGT634U. The cool thing about the new WGR614L is that you don’t have to bother with opening the case like you do for the WGT634U - there’s a serial port on the back of the router already!

Tags: lead