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Asterisk - Some Questions
- Thread starter AMD_RULES
- Start date
Sure, you just need to grab some FXO/FXS cards and go to town.
Personally? I'd go with some SIP channel banks first; audiocodes make some great products. Make sure you get something that supports t38 ( IP over fax ), because you never know.
Although for home use, zoom has a pretty spiffy little box out. The Zoom 5801, which has 1 FXS and 1 FXO port which bridge when the unit is powered down. So during power outages, your phone can go directly through the POTS system. Otherwise, through the voip server. Further, it can drop 911 calls directly out the POTS line instead of the voip system.
Personally? I'd go with some SIP channel banks first; audiocodes make some great products. Make sure you get something that supports t38 ( IP over fax ), because you never know.
Although for home use, zoom has a pretty spiffy little box out. The Zoom 5801, which has 1 FXS and 1 FXO port which bridge when the unit is powered down. So during power outages, your phone can go directly through the POTS system. Otherwise, through the voip server. Further, it can drop 911 calls directly out the POTS line instead of the voip system.
If I were to do a setup like this, it would be in a business environment with two lines and three to four phones. What would I need to start? I'm just trying to get an idea on what would be required and involved in doing this kind of setup @ work. 
For business? Ok, here we go;
1) Use copper from the phone company. Never EVER think you can run your business phones over the internet. Bad mojo. Trust me.
2) Get a SIP gateway from audiocodes that support t38 ( fax over ip ). They have a few different models, but don't forget to plan for future expansion.
3) Get an asterisk appliance from digium.
4) Get support contracts on both devices. Think about how long your business can be down without phones and purchase accordingly.
5) Use SNOM IP phones. The 300 series rock.
Optional
5) Install Freepbx ( or whatever they are called anymore ). This will give you a gui to work with AND help you with your reporting.
6) Install flash operator panel. PHBs LOVE this feature, can't underestimate that.
Some things to keep in mind; Asterisk isn't a keybased system like Avaya's Partner system. The concept of external lines are completely abstracted from the end user. What that means is you can't put a call on hold on phone A and pick it up on phone B on the same line ( not without some serious programming ). This is a big thing that small businesses throw a fit over, so be aware of it.
1) Use copper from the phone company. Never EVER think you can run your business phones over the internet. Bad mojo. Trust me.
2) Get a SIP gateway from audiocodes that support t38 ( fax over ip ). They have a few different models, but don't forget to plan for future expansion.
3) Get an asterisk appliance from digium.
4) Get support contracts on both devices. Think about how long your business can be down without phones and purchase accordingly.
5) Use SNOM IP phones. The 300 series rock.
Optional
5) Install Freepbx ( or whatever they are called anymore ). This will give you a gui to work with AND help you with your reporting.
6) Install flash operator panel. PHBs LOVE this feature, can't underestimate that.
Some things to keep in mind; Asterisk isn't a keybased system like Avaya's Partner system. The concept of external lines are completely abstracted from the end user. What that means is you can't put a call on hold on phone A and pick it up on phone B on the same line ( not without some serious programming ). This is a big thing that small businesses throw a fit over, so be aware of it.
no problem, feel free to ask anytime. There are a few of us asterisk nuts on this board, and between us we've got some decent experience to draw from.Thanks for your help. I'm gonna do some research on it, but not gonna jump on it. Maybe in the future, but for now our phone system is working fine.
Thanks!!!
Its not that easy to setup either. I had a nightmare intergrating it into our curent phone system.
Now People in Spain can dial an internal number and contact people in England for free... but i think it aged me about 20 years installing it.
We still run from a standard phone system at HQ but the remote offices use IP
Now People in Spain can dial an internal number and contact people in England for free... but i think it aged me about 20 years installing it.
We still run from a standard phone system at HQ but the remote offices use IP
How so? I've never had an issues getting asterisk integrated in any setup.
Gimme some POTS lines and I'm gold ( or T1 ).
Also, take a look at Trixbox. I am using it now and its great. Very easy to get up and running. I had very 2.0 a year or so ago and even then it was easy to get up and running.
www.trixbox.org
www.trixbox.org
i had never done it before.
Ah, ya, first time around can be an experience. Although once you have the phone terminology down, the rest is cake.
However, that phone terminology SUCKS.
A little trivia for everyone; some of you may know this. You know how they call the different wires in your average POTS line TIP and RING? This dates back to the old operator manning the patch panels. The plugs were the huge 3 inchers, with two conductors. One on the tip, the other was the ring further up on it.
Yes. Asterisk supports the cisco protocol ( don't remember what that is ). Most Cisco phones run SIP as well, which asterisk uses.
Depends on the phone. If the phone is built to handle POTS lines, then yes. Otherwise, if you want to hook up a landline to it, you'll need a converter of some sort.
I would stay away from snom 300 series phones personally and instead look at the Aastra 5xi line. I've deployed over 1,000 snom 3x0 phones in various businesses and while they are nice the company and the technical support they provide is dismal. I have to go through my distributor for support and they generally tell me that they will box up all the troubleshooting and send it to snom and then snom takes weeks to get anything back, usually they just say it's a firmware issue and that it will be fixed in a future release. Last I talked to anyone at snom a year ago the entire company is something like 20 people, mostly software engineers. Aastra has been a nigh/day difference on the support side.
Would you happen to know any that do support POTS lines? Like the 7960G for example...