sundance-communications.com/forum Forums VOIP Phones & IP PBX VoIP & Cloud Phones, Hosted PBX, General IP Phones i think i'm in over my head!

This forum is full of good information.. so first off, a big thanks to those who moderate/created this!

Ok. Here is my current situation:
It wasn't meant to be this way. It's what I like to call full submersion (meaning I'm kinda learning as I go.. and I'm good at it, so bare with me)

My client has a PRI line running into an Altigen VoIP phone system (if you need more info on boards/model/software, let me know).
Recently, they moved some people to a different location, and invested money in a private, full P2P T1.
I've got two cisco 2600xm's with WIC-1DSU-T1's in each of them, running on both sides of the P2P.
Sitting abandoned, I've found a couple VWICs (one VWIC-1MFT-T1, and one VWIC-2MFT-T1).

Currently, down at the remote location, they are using pots lines to communicate with the main office. Problem is, they are complaining about not being able to dial extensions, so management says, "Get it done" :bang:
This is where the over-the-head comes into play. I've never set up VoIP over a P2P, and never played with any VWICs before.

My question to all you gentlemen out there:
Can I allow for the remote location to receive extensions on IP phones, and dial externally (via the main plant) with the equipment I currently procure? Or will I have to purchase another Altigen Switch to place at the remote location?

If you need to have local dial tone at the remote site then I would imagine that you will need an Altigen switch at that site.

I'm not familiar with the Altigen--but like Whitey says---you'll need an Altigen switch at the other location. With a bit of programming you should be able to transfer calls, intercom, etc.

On other systems they are able to just install IP phones on a broadband internet connection at the remote location and the main system will see those as extensions. (Allworx and others can do this)

You're going to have to get together with whoever installed that Altigen and get a plan.

Aaaah phooey.

That's gonna be quite a bit of money.
Doesn't make much sense, these alti switches. Though the software is pretty slick, I don't think I'd advise anyone to buy one.
One word: proprietary.


One more question, which I can't seem to google a good answer for:
What exactly do these VWICs I've got do?
Translate voice data into WAN capable data? And on the other side of the WAN I'm guessing you've gotta have a VWIC to decode..
Am I correct in my presumptions?


Thanks for the information guys.

a VWIC is a voice wan interface card for a cisco router. Here's some information about the cards you have. https://www.cisco.com/warp/public/116/t1_wic4.html

The VWICs allow you to break the T1 into channel groups of DS0's, and to do add/drop of the DS0's, and mapping of the DS0's to specific channels.

For instance, you could group 18 DS0's worth of data (1152k) with 6 DS0's worth of voice, combined into a full T1 for transport between sites.

see also

The V-WIC are multipurpose T1s you can do both voice and data. Traditionally on a standard WIC1-DSU-T1 you got to the serial interface and do a service-module T1 timeslots 1-24 to configure the card, on a MFT you go into the top of the config into the controller 0/1/0 section and do the commands up there. You either create it for PRI or for P2P here are both configurations.

controller T1 1/0
framing esf
linecode b8zs
pri-group timeslots 1-24
!
interface Serial1/0:23
description to PRI
no ip address
isdn switch-type primary-5ess
isdn incoming-voice voice
no cdp enable
!
controller T1 0/1/0
framing esf
linecode b8zs
channel-group 0 timeslots 1-24
!
interface Serial0/1/0:0
description P2P
bandwidth 1544
ip address 10.255.255.2 255.255.255.252
!

Couple of questions, does the Altigen system support IP phones? If it does just create a VLAN on the far end for voice and route the traffic across the link. Your only other option (- buying another switch) is to use one of the MFT cards in the head-end side plug it into a T1 on the Altigen switch and put some FXOs on the farside and use analog phones.

Correction - you would use FXS's on the far side.

Yes FXS on the farside (just testing you) :p . Sorry thanks for the correction. Sorry to give wrong information. The way I remember this is FXS is like a single line card for a PBX, and FXO is like a CO card.

FXS Foreign eXchange ---> Station (provides battery and ring voltage)
FXO Foreign eXchange ---> Office (terminates a circuit from the CO)