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

Actually the modems were about 9.00 each and I have seen them cheaper on ebay. The FXS ports come from Sipura spa-2000's which were about 70.00 each. I have a total monetary investment of 160.00 and my old P3 computer, which is the Asterisk server. The pnones were already here. Recently hooked up giving 10 stations and 5 lines each. Two CO lines are shared among 4 extensions, I assigned the 4 extensions to everyone in my home ( there are 4 of us ) and have no trouble calling or transferring calls because the extensions used go to all the phones accessible to the person. In addition we purchased a SPA-3000 for the office which gives me an extension to there and a way for me to use a CO line there from home. I have already saved enough in gas to pay for the Asterisk hardware! THe only drawback I have found is that no analog adapters have the power to ring real phone bells, and none support rotary dialing. The Mitel smart dialer was needed to take care of the pulse/tone conversion. I will use a Western Electric phone over a keyset made in some third world country anyday! They're tough, and kid proof! Also the co lines comming in go directly to each 1a2 phone so even when power's lost or the phone system fails, you can still keep on talking. I don't feel locked into one type of phone system with pricey keysets and companies which hide their manuals and charge for programming software. At the office I have never been able to get instructions how to program our Panasonic, and they won't even give me the software to do it!

You can network to office with a FXO/FXS gateway Like Multitech. You can use lines at the office. You Can page people at the office. You can check your V mail at the office. The Office people can call you,
They can page your system, they can transfer calls to you. Real simple. You have a button your phone
Labled "JIM BOBS OFC". They have a button labled
"JIM BOB AT HM".
Panasonic manuals come with the system on CD.
All Panasonic systems can be programmed via the phone interface, you don't need software.
Most business systems are complicated and if messed up cost the company money. As long as a customer accecpts responsibility for any screw ups, we let them program anything they want.
It's just that most will not accecpt this.
Those that do come in for training on programming
thier system, they pay for this.
The home systems come with software for the end user, but you have to put in a lot of time to learn to use it.

We get a lot of IT guys demanding the pass words to systems so they can "Admin" them, no problem,
as long as they accecpt responsibility for thier actions. They have trouble, we help them over the phone, no charge. But if we have to go in and reprogram system, we charge. If you object to that you might have a problem.

We just want to know that the system we recommended and installed, continues to do the job, as we intended. Without the old "Panasonic (or insert any other brand) is junk" drivel from the peolple who screwed it up. :read:

rotary500, let me ask you another question about the asterisks system.

I apologize if someone else already asked this before but can you buy a Panasonic phone system/samsung phone system and basically use the Asterisks PC as 100% voicemail system?

My idea would be to start out simple while slowly trying out new features. I'm a little bit of a coward to go 100% of the Asterisks right now but I think I could absolutely use it as a voice mail system until I can learn more.

If I hook up a Samsung or Panasonic analog phone line to the asterisks, and have those likes configured as Voicemail/auto-attendant ports in the system. Could it be used for voicemail?

This is a tough question.

Lets assume that the system will have those lines configured as Voice mail/auto-attendant lines and have the ability to transfer calls to the voicemail extension when the phone is not answered in 20 seconds.

Can Asterisks voice mail abilities work on another system to your knowledge?

I know this is a crazy idea but those Samsung voice mails systems won't fit inside a iDCS 100 system expanded when 24 digital extension/C1 trunk card. They only give you 3 little expansion slots.

It will be thousands cheaper than buying an expansion cabinet and in-skin samsung voicemail card.

Please let me know.

Thanks.

Sorry for the delay responding, but hurricane Wilma knocked out my internet connection for almost two weeks! I use Asterisk as a voicemail system at work, and we have a Panasonic kx-td816 in the office but the Asterisk box is an old pentium 2 system with a modem connected to a free extension on the Panasonic system. You could set up automated attendant but it would do no good as there is no way to dial the extensions directly. Customers can leave a message, or enter an extension number, which goes VOIP to my home office. It's an IAX connection to my home asterisk server, which actually has fxs and fxo ports for connection to real phones. SO if a customer calls and no one is in the office, and he knows my extension, entering it connects him to a 1A2 rotary phone on my desk. before this we actually used an answering machine from Wal mart! My all Asterisk phone system at home has performed beyond all expectations and it's nice to not be trapped in a proprietary system.