[nmglug] VOIP Asterisk

[Andres Paglayan]

On Wed, 2011-05-11 at 13:44 -0600, J. Marsden DeLapp wrote:
> My existing system has two incoming phone lines and six extensions.
> 

hardware wise you have three options:

all voip:
  you'll need to migrate your numbers over the voip termination
  provider (but you can test the whole setup before doing so)
  
  You'll need 6 voip extensions (mix and match) the options are 
    - desktop phones start at $50 an up.
      (avoid cisco phones as you'll need to flash the firmware)
    - you can load sip soft phones in android phones 
      and use them as extension under wifi (free)
    - computer soft phone, like zoiper, (free)
    - usb handset for computer software phone, 
      (like a desktop phone, but uses the computer cycles) 

All POTS:
  you'll need 2 FXO and 6 FXS ports, ~$700
  it will take two card slots and the only way to expand expansion is
voip,

MIXED:
  you can connect one line to the telco,
  and some extension to regular phones, 
  (it's the only environment in which a fax works reliably, provided
   you don't echo cancel in the fax port)
  you'll need 1 FXS (or two if you want to keep the two pots),
  and as many FXOs ports as you want to connect
  to regular phones, 2 recommended, ~$300
  you can have as many voip extension as you want with 
  
  I have exactly this with a digium card with 1 FXO and 3 FXS,
  and also gave voip extensions to many friends abroad


I'd avoid any virtual machine as sometimes they may introduce some
clocking problems, and asterisk is extremely clock sensitive 


> Features that I consider critical are:
> - the ability for a person to answer during business hours and switch to auto 
> attendant after hours. 
> - individual voice mail for each employee with the ability to forward the 
> messages to the employee's email.
> 

all work out of the box,

> I also have a Taos office and the plan is to get rid of the physical phone line 
> in Taos, forward the number to the Santa Fe office and set up a VOIP extension 
> in the Taos Office.
> 


there are some ports that need forwarding, and some ranges as well, 
you must have control of the router and the router needs to let you you
do a range forward to an internal ip, QoS is good to have as well at
your router,


> The existing two phone lines are actually VOIP from Comcast. They are 
> connected with a 
> Touchstone® Telephony Modem TM604G with Integrated Battery Back-up
> http://www.arrisi.com/product_catalog/listers/index.asp?id=430
> This converts the data on the cable (DOCIS) to two POTS lines.
> I wonder if I can get rid of this and just get the VOIP straight into the 
> Asterisk box? 

nope, they use a proprietary protocol,
probably best to switch the termination service over other company,
plus it is known that comcast does some nasty stuff to other sip traffic

> One twist to that is that my alarm system requires physical 
> phone lines so I would need to figure out a different alarm monitoring plan. 
> Converting the alarm monitoring to broadband monitoring appears to be doable 
> and may actually save money in the long run.
> 

In this case then you'll need at least one FXS port,
or you might be fine with an ATA box, 
they provide a phone jack and bridge to the PBX via sip
I have one sitting around if you want to try it,
(they are old and probably a bit more cumbersome to set-up)

You can test an ATA box directly to see if the alarm protocol is
supported, like:  alarm <-> ata <-> voip provider

and then when you have your pbx you change to:
alarm <-> ata <-> PBX <-> voip provider

> The six extensions are currently old phones that I had before the Talkswitch 
> PBX installation. They are two line phones but only use one line. I would not 
> mind replacing these with IP phones.
> 
> I have two Linksys SPA941 IP phones. One was intended to be for the Taos office 
> and one for my home.

That's a good start,
you can open a pay as you go account at a place like teliax,
and start playing with the phones,
I pay around $25 per month with 3 numbers (DIDs),

> 
> 
> Mars
> 
> On Wednesday 11 May 2011 9:29:30 am Andres Paglayan wrote:
> > Setting up a 100% voip environment is not expensive,
> > The cost increases when you need to add hardware to connect to legacy
> > phones, or legacy phone lines,
> > To have an idea about voip-phones and the card prices look at
> > voipsupply.com,
> > 
> > Almost any oldy will work as a server, and there are many Asterisk
> > distributions that will work well out of the box,
> > (I have a trixbox running on a pentium 4 for 5 years at home, and even
> > my android runs an app that hooks as an extension to my home pbx)
> > 
> > The installation is very easy for somebody who know linux,
> > and the configuration, having a gui interface is painless,
> > 
> > As using voip includes contracting with a voip termination provider (I
> > use teliax.com)
> > other options are just skipping your box and using their pbx like
> > environment (a la vonage)
> > but that might not be suitable if you want to use advanced pbx stuff,
> > 
> > If you tell a little more about the environment I could help better,
> > (number of extension, pre-existing hardware, availability or not of
> > ethernet wiring)
> > 
> > On Tue, 2011-05-10 at 15:39 -0600, J. Marsden DeLapp wrote:
> > > I am looking for some advice on setting up a PBX system that includes
> > > VOIP.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > I currently have a proprietary PBX system  (Talkswitch 280vs) that could
> > > do VOIP if I add a $500 module to it.
> > > 
> > > How easy is it to setup an Asterisk based PBX? and what do they cost?
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Mars
>