Phone System

[mrX]

I'm looking into phone systems and this has to be one of the most confusing things in the world. I'm trying to set up a 2 line office phone that also has an extension at my home that acts as if it's connected to the main system (via the internet of course). I'd like to be able to answer calls at either location and intercom b/w the locations.

 

I've looked at Asterisk which seems to do it, but the hardware needed??? Analog telephone adapters are needed, but they range from $60 to $1,000+.

 

Anyone done this and have any advice?

[stutters]

if you're feeling geek, asterisk isn't that hard to setup, and you don't need the adapters you're thinking of (unless you want to recycle your current phones). asterisk to support that office size would actually run on your wrt54g, actually. if you think the office will be growing anytime soon, it'd be worth getting an old box setup to do it. if you want to do this, let me know which and i'll link you to the howto's. they're actually step by step, but i'd have to look for them. you'd need an idx (i think, been a while) gateway. google that for price, plus the price of your broadband, plus ~$150 per phone.

 

if you're not feeling geeky, you can use http://www.aptela.com. i use them for my stuff, ~$20/mo for 1 phone, and i think each ~$10 each addtl phone. depending on usage, you may go beyond $20/mo. you'd have to buy new phones for this, too.

 

there's probably other better/cheaper/faster/newer ways of doing it, but those are the ways i've done it. i use http://www.snom.com phones and love em. more expensive than other voip phones, but military grade tough.

 

-sj

[monthos]

+1 on asterisk. I have set it up a couple of times. Though I guess it can be intimidating if your new, I think there are config programs out there as well but I always attacked the config files by hand. Hardware requirements are very minimal as SJ pointed out unless you plan on having many lines with music on hold. I have a DID I pay 8$ a month for, my brother also set up a card for our landline.

[mrX]

Right now I have just a standard telephone line coming into the office which connects to the buildings phone system (a dinosaur that's probably 20+ years old). The analog telephone adapters I thought were necessary to connect the POTS line to the computer. I could switch over to a VoIP business service, but it would actually cost more per month.

 

I was thinking there should be a way to connect my POTS line to an asterisk computer and run a VoIP system myself. It's getting the POTS line into the computer that's confusing due to the varying costs of PCI cards.

[dwEEziL]

I feel your pain mrX. We still run an 20+ old PBX system here at VT. We've been "beta" testing different VoIP offerings (my group tested the Avaya systems) for the past few years. So far, testing has been indeterminate mostly because the budget hasn't been juggled to provide the money for it.

[stutters]

so are you on the buildings pbx, or are you just talking about a 20 year old mpoe?

 

i'm pretty torn on this. connecting a pots line to an asterisk pbx is like putting biodiesel in an indy car. sure, it works, but you just can't appreciate all the features. what's the total monthly bill you're paying for voice at work right now?

[mrX]

My line runs into the building and into a nortel system which connects all the phones in the building (mine and about 40 other phones). I'm the last "slot" in that system meaning I can't get any more lines, and either way it won't let me have a phone at home.

 

It's $125/month with the phone line and internet service with a dedicated IP. I'm looking at going to 2-3 lines.

 

On another note, I've figured out the type of card to connect the POTS line to the computer, the Digium 410 series. Range from $260-$500 depending on echo cancellation and what FXO/FXS modules are on it. The more I'm looking though, the more I may just go toward not going the POTS line route.

[stutters]

do you have a spare system you could run asterisk on?

[mrX]

Bought a couple HDs to swap out in my main computer to install a test Asterisk server to tinker with. Haven't got it installed yet as I'm getting errors on install.

 

Would use a p4 1.6ghz with 768mb ram (my current office dinosaur) as the Asterisk server assuming this is the solution and just upgrade my office computer.

[stutters]

here are updated versions of the tutorials i used a couple years ago. worked start to finish for me. as much fun as it might be, i would NOT recommend trying to go at it alone. use an iso's you can...

 

part1 http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=217

part2 http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?p=218

 

more reading http://nerdvittles.com/index.php?cat=3

 

depending on your usage & number of lines (really) needed, you should be able to realize a breakeven in as little as 3 months (1 shared trunk) or as much as 9 months (2 trunks, unlimited usage). that's including new phones (2x snoms @ $150 ea.).

 

have fun!

[mrX]

Thank you SJ! Very useful stuff there.

[mrX]

Just an update as to what I did:

 

Originally followed the nerdvittles installation with PBX in a flash. Worked ok, just so much fluff that didn't seem necessary and slowed it down on my P4 1.6 with 768mb ram.

 

So I dumped PBX in a flash and built from ground up. Used CentOS 5.2 bare bones install then used these guides to get asterisk running (not without a few hitches) along with an asterisk gui:

 

http://www.asteriskguru.com/tutorials/aste...ion_centos.html

http://jangestre.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/hello-world/

http://www.asteriskguru.com/tutorials/asterisk_gui.html

 

Got a card for around $125 for 2 lines of POTS to plug in (this card with 2 fxo modules): http://www.tspire.com/servlet/the-2103/ZMA...ALOG-PCI/Detail

 

Signed up for VoIP lines from http://www.inphonex.com and http://www.callwithus.com to have some VoIP lines to test. Can't believe how cheap that was.

 

Using two Linksys SPA942 phones (which are pretty cool I must say). Going to get a Aastra 57i CT also (for a cordless phone).

 

All in all, it works pretty well. Will go into actual use this week. Only one issue left to resolve, and that is that the computer randomly shuts down. It used to do the same when I ran linux on it for a web server, so I'm guessing it's some hardware conflict.

 

As a backup until the random shutdown is resolved, I've got Centos 5.2 with Asterisk running on a VPS in Chicago through http://www.bodhost.com

 

Hope that's helpful to anyone else considering this.

[stutters]

those 942's are good phones. i'm feeling too lazy to search for the cordless. is it wifi cordless, or 2.4ghz cordless?

[mrX]

Here's a link to the Aastra 57i CT http://www.aastra.com/cps/rde/xchg/SID-3D8...s.xsl/19700.htm

 

Looks to be some variation of DECT that is used for the cordless handset. It's around $300. It's going to be what is used to work from home.

 

The 942's seemed to have a lot of features and were relatively cheap ($125/ea. shipped). They work well for what I'm doing.