I just want to
clarify a few things. I have about 100 Toshiba digital phones, 4 ports
on the voicemail, and 24 phone lines. Not all of the lines are POTS
lines. I think 8 of the lines are Direct Inbound Dial (DID). Due
to a decrease in call volume, I am most likely going to cancel 6 – 8 POTS
lines in the near future. Also, due to the cost involved with
implementing a completely new phone system the Toshiba phone system will have
to stay. This will be phase out a little at a time. If the rumor
is correct, what would you do if you need more than four Digium cards?
Would you run multiple Asterisk boxes? Currently, I have Asterisk
installed on a Slackware 10 system for testing purposes. I am going to
test it on the side. Once I feel confident with Linux (sorry, I don’t
have a lot of experience with it) and Asterisk, I will put it in place of the
Toshiba voicemail for “live” (after hours) testing. Luckily, our
developer at work prefers running Linux, so I have someone to run to for
assistance.
Thanks for the
info. I will review the hardware needs and make a purchase
SOON.
-----Original
Message-----
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Jay Milk
Sent: Wednesday, July 21, 2004 4:29
PM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Future
installation questions - what do I need?
The "O"
in FXO means Office, so that connects to your POTS lines. The "S" in FXS
means Station, which connects to an extension.
In your
case, I'd dump the Toshiba System entirely, because Asterisk can do all the
Toshiba can, and the Asterisk VM doesn't have any port
restrictions.
In order
to connect to the four POTS lines, Digium offers a quad-FXO card TDM04B,
$337. As an alternative, you could get four X100Ps for $396, but there's
a rumor that the PCI bus only supports four digium cards at a time.
There are some reports of trouble with the TDM04B, so you may want to do your
homework before buying anything. If you're going to a PRI, the T100P
will be the best solution.
As for
extensions (let's assume you need 24), you have various
choices.
- T100P
+ channel-bank + 24 analog phones
- TDM40B
offers four FXS (extension) ports for each card -- again, 4-card limitation
will restrict you to 4 FXO/12 FXS
-
Purchase 24 IP Phones (from $100-$500 each)
-
Purchase 24 IAXies from Digium at $100/port and connect them to 24 analog
phones
-
Purchase a few SIP-adapters (like the Sipura SPA-2000) at $50/port and connect
analog phones
- any
combination of the above
Before
rolling this into production, you may want to install asterisk on an "extra"
system and see how you get along with it. It's easier to learn for some
than for others.
-----Original
Message-----
From: Michael
Little [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, July
21, 2004 1:58
PM
To:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Future
installation questions - what do I need?
I currently have a Toshiba
Strata DK424 with a Stratagy voicemail system (4 ports). I am looking
to go from having a receptionist answering the phone to an automated
attendant. It appears that Asterisk can be the solution, but I have
some questions. Do I just replace the Stratagy with the Asterisk or do
I need to reconfigure the routing of the phone lines? Currently, the
POTS lines come in to the Strata phone system. Would I need to have
the POTS lines come in to the Asterisk then connect the Strata to the
Asterisk? The Strata is equipped with an automated attendant, but only
having 4 ports causes dropped calls. At the current time, we just want
to use the automated attendant and voicemail features, but we intend to
start using VoIP and SIP. Finally, which cards do I need to
purchase? I am not familiar with all the terminology, so I am a little
confused with FXS and FXO. Once I figure out where things need to go,
I think it would make things a little easier. All our phone lines come
in on POTS lines, but we may change to PRI at some point. I understand
that this will change which cards I need. I have mainly been looking
at the Digium cards do to pricing. The Intel (Dialogic) cards seem to
be a lot more expensive. Are the Intel’s any better than the
Digium? Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in
advance.
Michael
