On Wed, 2004-11-17 at 11:35 -0500, Cole Tuininga wrote: > I've been looking more and more at asterisk. Not having *any* > experience with phone related stuff, it's a little intimidating but it > seems like there's a lot of documentation out there. One question I'd > have for you, Ed, is what kind of financial investment did you have to > put into hardware for this (if you don't mind my asking)?
Financial investment to build an asterisk box for home is very low. You need a PC running Linux, so that can cost anywhere from $0 (any old PC laying around) to > $500 (if you really want to go all out!!). You need an FXO card of some sort to plug your phone line into. You can buy a single port FXO card from Digium (Wildcard X100P) for $100. You don't have to spend the $100 for the Digium card, though. You can get a modem using a particular chipset that is compatible with the zaptel drivers that Asterisk uses for about $10 (http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp? description=25-180-004&DEPA=0) That takes care of the server itself. Then, you need IP phones. You can get Grandstream Budgetones for about $65, or you can spend $600 on a Cisco :-) So, the cost can break out like this (assuming 3 phones): Part Low End HighEnd ==== ======= ======= PC $0 $500 FXO Card $10 $100 Phone $65 $600 Phone $65 $600 Phone $65 $600 ======= ======= Total $205 $2400 So, it can cost about anywhere from $205 - $2400. Of course, there are many different ways that your end goal can be achieved, so the pricing may vary. You can also do without IP phones and use analog phones with either IP IADs or FXS ports in the asterisk box. HTH, Kenny -- Kenneth E. Lussier Sr. Systems Administrator Sentito Networks
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