Learning PBX systems

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Metraon

Limp Gawd
Joined
Feb 23, 2011
Messages
307
Hi

I would like some advice on where to start to get a small working PBX lab. I have a spare mini-box computer, m350 with a 2500cce motherboard, 4gb of ram, 120 gb ssd. Dont know if its appropriate, but I have to ask.

Is there some phone line USB card I can get, or are they all PCI, PCI-Express phone cards ? I want to make a small working lab with asterisk and freepbx. Learn VOIP basics and get some small practical learning. I was thinking of getting perhaps get 2-3 real phones, and install software phones on virtual machines. I want some real phones to see line quality and test real QoS on my switches.

All the lab setups I see on the internet are Cisco Call Managers with routers and switches, and real phones, I am not sure I want to invest in that.

Thanks for any insight !
 
I would suggest getting familiar with SIP first and deal with extras later. I would suggest sipXecs and softphones, Polycom or Yealink for hardware phones. Learn the basics, move on from there.
 
yeah, start with the free stuff first. get a pay per minute sip account (like vitelity or voip.ms etc) that you can setup for 20 bucks.
 
Asterisk is a great platform to learn PBX/VOIP on. Your difficulty however would be in learning the analog vs. digital vs. IP-based aspects of the system without first procuring certain hardware.
 
Cheap yealink phone or a flashed cisco 7940/60 from ebay and a raspberry pi running incrediblepbx are all you need. You can make SIP calls via google voice (check nerd vittles for instructions).
 
Is this learning for fun or as an angle for work?

I think you might need to look into the offering from PBX venders, choose one and start playing with it. You can visualize Call Managers, but the problem will come from SIP Trunks, which is where your talking Routers, there are ways around this, but it would purely be lab.

All venders are different in there own way. Asterisk is a good base, but hard to get into unless you use gui and it's flexible. FreePBX is another. Big plays make it easier and harder at the same time. Skills are portable, but not all.

If you want physical cards for POTS and keep visualized, make sure you have VT-d support.
 
Its for an angle of work. I want to get some practical knowledge, experiments QoS with different router and distributions that I have. I want to know how to setup call servers with contact management, integration with CRMs etc etc etc. Shoot XML config files to telephones, etc etc

I wanted to make me a lab at my house that I could eventually use for myself, but I am not sure yet.

I work with small offices that often have old meridian phone systems already in place and we have to buy old phones on the internet to get it working, and use the manual to setup phones and zones and extension. I am not expert enough to offer them my services for ip telephony but I want to learn at best to troubleshoot and after design some basic phone systems, so prehaps one day I could recommend some phone systems.

Thanks to all for the advices
 
Wow... Meridian. I haven't touched one of them in time. I'd personally want that replaced sooner rather than later. If I remember correctly they usually end up mixing with Symposium?

If you want Cisco take a look at the Cisco UC500 (probably 540). There small IOS type devices that aren't too bad for small offices with around 10 or 20 users and are feature rich. They work and there fully supported with smartnets, its one of the benefits from going with someone like Cisco. There are others out there mind.

With regards to a work angle, I'd think Asterisk. You can get hosted solutions and the majority of other distro's are build from Asterisk so its a good base. They are also extremely flexible and support stuff like IVR and transcoding (there is a License cost for G729). If you want bigger house stuff, then your mainly looking at Cisco CUCM because of the Virtual aspect, unless someone knows of another platform that can be virtualised from a big player. However if your wanting something from Cisco for Contact Center things like CRM, then you'll need to look at UCCX. Cisco sell peace by peace and you normally pay "Cisco TAX" on top of everything, so its not cheap. But it has its benefit of support, scalability, etc.

From a QoS testing point of view you can use anything (to a degree). At the end of the day SIP is SIP and codec's are codec's despite the vendor. The problem you'll face is load, to properly test it without blind faith, you need something that can replay Calls under volume, you'll need packet analysis software, or lots of phones and call traffic.

Hope that helps,

EDIT: Troubleshooting SIP is more about networking than phone systems. SIP establishes sessions and its not just used for VoIP. You'll need a good understanding of Networking and how to do packet analysis.
 
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Want to get started without too much training? See if you can purchase a used Avaya IP Office 500 box with a few digital phones. That will give you more 'traditional' PBX functionality, at least in terminology and usage. It also doubles as a key system (which your Meridian is probably configured as).

Otherwise, get familiar with SIP and you'll have half the equation in most modern PBX. The other half is learning the telecom worlds terms. That just comes with lots of learning on the job.
 
I have bought some books on trixbox and asterisk and for now I will work with soft phones. After I will get onto the hard phones and see if I can make a shot on a ''real'' pbx.

Thanks to all !
 
Metraon said:
I have bought some books on trixbox and asterisk and for now I will work with soft phones. After I will get onto the hard phones and see if I can make a shot on a ''real'' pbx.

Thanks to all !
Click to expand...

I've had better luck with forums than books. I have a subscription to Safari Books Online so I can get books before they are even published, but even then books are usually a major version or two out of date.
Maybe get a free month of Safari Books or equivalent and trial the book to see if it is even useful.
 
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