sundance-communications.com/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Asterisk PBX system

Hi.

I'm researching an Asterisk PBX phone system and I was wondering if you guys may have any information on it.

There is major information lacking on its website regarding the actual phones.

It said it supports both Digital and analog extensions.

Now when it said "Digital" does this mean it can use the proprietary digital phones of other phone system manufactures?

The Analog adaptor is a card which connects to the computer and then to the punch block to give you the analog extensions or is it something you have to plug into every analog phone.

Its not really too clear from its website.

Thanks

sounds scary to me.
m

Asterisk uses generic IP phones you can buy online. The analog lines are fxo/fxs cards. Asterisk is pretty cool but a huge waste of time and effort IMHO. Some people swear by it, but those people usually are linux gurus (geeks) that have alot of time to mess with things and don't mind if it's down every now and then and the phones are not mission critical. Just my 2 cents.

I'm thinking it might be cool to get my house setup with something as an intercom so I can call all around without screaming LOL.

For me it would not be missing critical like a business phone system but more like a computer.

So basically you must have your house CAT-5 wired in order to use the IP-phones?

Are all IP-phone generic or are some proprietary?
Do the IP-phone give you hot button shortcuts like on a digital phone system? Where you press 1 button and it calls the speaker phone in a particular room?

Do you have a website or manufacturer name of the IP phone. If you go to the Asterisk website, there is not even 1 word mention about the phones it uses. At first, I thought maybe it just uses software phone of your PC. I mean, they don't explain this 1 bit!

When you say "analog lines are fxo/fxs cards" do you mean POTS analog input to the CO or do you mean analog lines for analog phones?

If my house is not cat-5 wired however wired with a normal telephone wiring, is there any change in using this asterisk system?

Thanks.

it is my understanding that * uses the standard sip protocol. so look for a digital phone that uses sip.


and i'm pretty sure you'll need a cat5 wherever you want a phone. cat3 or less is not cat5.

don't expect any support on the product either. In the few cases I have seen it deployed, it didn't last long.

I am currently using asterisk in combination with my 1a2 system at home, and to connect with my office via VOIP. You can use an older computer and install cheap modems from e-bay to get CO connectivity, or to go through another pbx. Adapters to connect to regular telephones are available from manufacturers like Sipura and Grandstream, and that's what I use for local FXS ( connect to telephone ) and fxo (connect to phone line ) capability. To make it easy on yourself download asterisk@home to avoid the Linux headaches, unless you're a Linux user. I am still learning this myself but would offer any advice you needed to set it up. The reliability here has been good, three months with no down time. I was just happy to get my 1a2 lines connected to something!

Thank you Rotary500.

Let me ask you, the local FXS card allows you to wire the 66 block for analog phones or is this an adaptor that you connect the actual phone into.

In other words, adaptor work in the phone room wiring or the wiring going to each actual phone?

Do you need 1 card per phone or 1 card for couple of extensions?

The Asterisk@home works with windows? That will save a lot of trouble! Thanks for the tip.

So you are using Asterisk to turn your regular phone system into a VOIP system to network to your office.

Can I ask how you do that? I'm considering trying to network my office system also. Do you know if it uses H.323 or SIP protocol? Maybe you could tell me a little about how this connecting to your office works?

Thanks for your help.

You can put in an fxs adapter in the computer, it lets you get dial tone on the analog phones, and ring them. I have found the external adapters to be cheaper, I am using the Sipura 2000 and 3000, have two spa 2000's here, ethernet goes in and two fxs ports connect with rj 11 plugs to a wire leading to the 1a2 system. At the office we have a Panasonic hybrid system with 16 extensions I plugged in the spa-3000 which provides one fxo and one fxs port, allowing me to call into the phone system from home, and also making my extension at work able to ring my phones at home. Fxo port goes to the panasonic, the fxs port connects to my phone, which is a touch tone western electric, it has no problems ringing!

If you use the internal PCI cards they go from 1 to 4 extensions and if you really had a big budget you could pick up a T-1 card and get 24 extensions from a channel bank. Yes I used Asterisk just to get voip functionality for the analog phones, also had to use a MItel smart dialer to convert from pulse (rotary ) to dtmf (touchtone) because none of the analog adapters can recognize pulse dialing. When away I have used the Firefly software phone to call and recieve calls as an extension. All my devices are using the SIP protocol.

Asterisk will not run on windows, but who wants WIndows in a pbx? Asterisk at home is asterisk and linux on one CD which installs automatically, you don't have to know ANYTHING about Linux to use it, just get a suitable PC, cloned or Diguim hardware and start it with the CD drive. In 30 minutes it's done! I am highly satisfied witht he system, learning the configuration is the toughest part, but the built in web based portal makes it easier.

While an open-source PBX is a cool idea...I just don't see how it can be cost effective. OK, so the software is free, and if you have an old computer laying around, so is the server. Great, dandy. BUT, with just the server and software you are limited to internal calls with softphones. If you want to connect to CO lines, you've gotta buy a card, and from my understanding, a regular old modem won't cut it (correct me if i'm wrong, b/c that would be nice if a regular modem did work). The cards thru asterisk are expensive. Cheapest I saw was $241, which gives you 1 CO line and 1 analog extension. Not exactly useful. You can by add on modules, for about $85 each. So, you;re still limited to 1 internal analog extension and the rest of hte internal extensions are software based. So you can spend money on the expensive cards or get "feature phones" by buying IP phones....but they're expensive too.....I just don't see how this is any better.