Hi,
So I'm completely new to telecom. I'm an IT guy, trying to help out a non-profit.

Two questions:
1.) The non-profit has two buildings, one on either side of a 6 lane highway. They have 2 classic ADIX pbx boxes in each building. They use a leased T1 line and connect them via what looks like an IX-T1DT1 card. Recently the two buildings have joined the same ethernet network via a high powered wireless bridge (20mbps). My question is if there's anyway to connect the two PBX's via our ethernet instead of using the expensive $600/mo T1. I'm assuming it's not as simple as plugging an ethernet cable into the T1DT1 card? If not, any other type of interface that could make this work?

2.) Do any of you know any experienced ADIX technicians in the San Francisco Bay area looking for some contract work?

Thanks!
Ryan

Just to add some clarity, and as you may have guessed, the two PBXs are connected with 1 leased T1, but one of the PBX's also has a second T1 which handles incomming/outgoing calls to the phone carrier for both of them.

Connecting the two switches with a wireless network is a bit spotty. VoIP normally requires Quality of Service to be enabled to avoid a lot of jitter and echo, and this is very difficult to achieve with any wireless network, regardless of available bandwidth. It would be possible to have a conversation, but the audio quality would be poor/unacceptable.

It's possible to link the switches over the network, but the more effective solution would be to upgrade both switches to the Iwatsu ECS platform ( processor/ controllers only neeed to be upgraded- all phones, existing equipment is still viable) with a buy-back time of less than 2 years considering the monthly T1 costs you now incur. All of this is mere wishful thinking without QoS throughout the network.

Check the installers link at the top of the page for dealers near you.

Thanks a lot for your suggestions. Reading about QOS for wireless, it seems a lot of it is oriented towards prioritizing for certain traffic/applications because of traffic congestion. Our wireless bridge has a fairly low utilization so I don't think that's a huge factor. However, if you're referring to latency or dropped packets causing jitters/echo's because of radio interference, channel crossing, or distance, that wouldn't suprise me.

But it sounds like it is technically possible to connect the IX-T1DT1 to a standard ethernet network, and we could at least attempt a test after optimizing our wireless bridge for QOS.

And the ECS platform also sounds promissing. I'm guessing you mentioned that because it's designed to operate over IP networks, so may provide higher quality calling? This will be helpful to talk about with an iwatsu specialist in our area.

Thanks again for your help. This is a great forum!

Ryan-

Another alternative is that installing IX-IPNET card if both classic systems are on version 8.
This may be much economic for non-profit I guess.

Thanks Ming, that might be a good option. Any idea how much those cards go for?