Telephone line over IP ?

[leSLIe]

My uncle has a small business and wants to upgrade their old telephone system to something newer. He's asked me to help him with this "little" project.

He has 4 normal telephone lines and wants to have more extensions (Around 15). His old prehistoric system supports only 8.
Is it possible to use VoIP to build a new phone system? (Not to connect to the Internet to make phone calls) Are there some good "how-to" guides that you guys could recommend to me? I'm new to all this VoIP stuff.

Yeah, yeah, I told him to hire a pro, but you know how's the family

 

[plugwash]

I haven't really got involved with VOIP just read about it so Ic an't reccomend specific kit but what you want is certainly possible. You would use what are known as "FXO cards" in the VOIP server to connect to the analog phone lines.

Having said that you might want to enquire with your phone provider about the possibility of moving to ISDN. If you can get ISDN then it will give you faster dialing times and the possibility of having multiple phone numbers numbers routing to different extensions.

 

[FnordMan]

One name that comes to mind is Asterisk. Should be able to handle the 4 analog lines with the right hardware. To run VoIP internally he will need new phones though.

Asterisk is reasonably popular enough that there should be howto's and a distro or two dedicated to it.

(caveat here: I have little experience with phone systems, just kind of repeating stuff i've seen online, I have no experience with how well asterisk works in the "real world")

 

[Deleted member 126051]

Okay, in-house we use this system:
http://www.allworx.com/products/business-phone-systems/allworx-6x-business-phone-system

It works fairly well. Nothing special, but IS fairly end-user maintainable with a little reading/teaching.

However, if your uncle is looking for "Free to dirt cheap", he's pretty much stuck where he is. Even building an Asterisk box is going to run into the "thousands" range once you factor in the proper cards, phones and all.

Also, look at picking up a switch that does PoE. It'll save on the cable clutter.

 

[rhansen5_99]

Not sure where you are at but you might look into a hosted voip solution like these guys http://spectrumvoip.com/ (I use them at work but probably only local to Dallas). But anyway they are a hosted VOIP so all you need is a fast internet at the office and a service like that can give you the phones you need (8) and a poe switch. You can also port your existing numbers over and the like. I think it is like $20/phone/month with unlimited calling nationally. Also you get a pretty fancy front end phone logic system. So you could see a ton of cost savings over traditional phone lines...

You can do it yourself but there is a ton of work you have to do to get an Aastra system off the ground.