Al, If you want the most flexibility you can get and you want to (or can) use a purely IP solution, then I would recommend looking at the pay-as-you-go plans a lot of VoIP service providers offers. (Lots of recommendations on this list) Most of them will allow you to pay a small monthly fee (~ $5) for a public number and then $0.02/min for usage. The nice thing is that there is no limit to the number of channels. So, if you have a single 'public' number and someone calls it, the service provider sends it to your box. While that call is in progress, if someone else calls, the service provider just opens another channel to your box and it rings. You don't have to maintain a block of numbers and a hunt group which costs money and limits your max simultaneous calls. Same thing with the other company that is merging... just port their main number(s) over and go. You can have several numbers (including 800 TF) which all run over the same connection. The service provider will set the call information during the call setup period. Asterisk can read this and determine which 'line' has been called so you can route appropriately. (Basically DID)
To smooth the transition, you would get a temp number from your VoIP service provider and do all the testing. (Since you already have Asterisk setup, this would be as easy as adding a new SIP or IAX trunk.) Then, when you are ready, set your current lines to forward to that temp number and order the number ports. When the ports go through, the numbers will move which will drop the forwards and you should be left with uninterrupted service. You might also find that doing it this way saves you money. A pure IP solution doesn't make you pay for hard-lines that are there strictly for capacity purposes. How often do those last few lines get used in that hunt group versus how much they cost? The real cost per call is much higher on those lines but businesses keep them anyway because they have to be ready for that one time a month when all the lines are busy. I think you'll find with this solution that it scales automatically and as long as you keep the account refilled, you can make and take as many calls as you want. (I believe a number of providers support an account threshold below which they will automatically refill your account with a specific amount.) In regards to your number portability problem... I would make your first call to the public utility commission to find out if CableVision is even allowed to hold that number. I believe a lot of the rules that opened the markets to the CLECs required that a number be portable from the ILEC to any CLEC and vice-versa. Your area may have regulations that require your CLEC to make the number portable between service providers and the person at CableVision you spoke with may either be unaware of it or deliberately misleading you. In general, I find the phone companies suddenly become very cooperative when you call them back with someone from the PUC backing you up. HTH! Jason -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Al Stery Sent: Saturday, October 07, 2006 12:51 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [asterisk-users] Options for moving to * friendly Business VSP previuos post mangled. Hi all, I have a client whose business is currently running on [EMAIL PROTECTED] 2.6 with Cablevision' s (CV) Optimum Voice (OV) and 3 lines. There are going to be 4 additional trunks needed and I'd like to move/migrate them off of OV, to a better more flexible/open/supportive VSP. OV does not share SIP credentials and operates a closed system which required the use of digium tdm-400b card in order to get the trunks into * and limits what we can achieve. There are two parts to this plan. Here are some of the requirements for the first part. The current 3 lines are setup as a hunt group so there's only one published number. My client needs to (at least for the time being) retain that phone number (business continuity) and CV does NOT allow number's in exchange blocks they "own" to be ported out. Due to this fact, I was pondering keeping one of the OV trunks open (the main number from the hunt group), and set it to forward all calls to the new hunt group number on the new VSP. This would be done until such time as the majority of customers are updated with the new phone number. I'm not sure how something like this would function but my concern would be how the "hand-off" on the forward would behave. For example, can this scenario handle multiple incoming calls simultaneously or would one call be dumped off into OV's voicemail system? Also, once a call is forwarded to the new number, is the original OV trunk freed up to accept/forward more incoming calls? or is it tied to that call? Part two. Another business is merging in, bringing with it 4 lines of their own, one of which is an 800 TF number, all currently configured via Verizon POTS serivce. Ideally, I'd like to get those 4 trunks ported to the same VSP also, keeping the TF 800 number and perhaps one of the "normal" phone numbers. The requirement here is that the LNP be done atomically, without downtime (over a weekend for example). I don't know whether or not this is possible. So overall, I'm trying to figure out what some of my options in achieving my goals here may be. I need to know which reliable, quality Business class VSP's can "fit the bill". Preferably one that can handle hunt groups, or multiple channels so that more trunks can be simply added as the business grows. Thanks in advance for any ideas, suggestions and advice you all can provide. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
