I never suggested Asterisk. All I'm saying is people should not be deploying on-site PBXs unless they have a business case to do so and if you do a true total cost ROI (taking all factors into account, not just up-front equipment purchase), hosted is your best solution.
I think you interpreted my comments as suggesting that the guy should setup his own hosted Asterisk PBX for this client which is absolutely not what I meant. He should buy service from an existing, established, proven hosted PBX provider, not try and do it himself. The traditional business case for the PBXs is to share expensive limited resources (lines) among many people using (comparatively) less expensive on-site equipment. In other words, it's cheaper to install your own equipment to share lines than it is to run copper pairs of wires to every person who needs a phone. With VOIP the cost of that limited resource has been greatly diminished and thus the business case for the on-site PBX also is greatly diminished. Note that I did not say "eliminated". The cost of the limited resource (lines) is pushed up the chain to the hosted PBX provider who able to use economies of scale to drive the "per-line" cost down by over-subscribing. As more users shift to products like Microsoft Lync & Skype, PSTN requirements will continue to drop and (hopefully) one day the PSTN will disappear. John
