Re: [OT] Asterisk Advice

["UKHA" <ukha@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 27/03/2006 at 20:49 michael.furlong wrote:

>
>The situation is that we have a head office which has a receptionist to
>answer the phones during working hours (but not always=85 lunchtimes
etc.)
>We also have two people who work from home but are on the road a lot of
th=
e
>time.

>All three locations have broadband two locations also have a standard
>analogue line each.

>Ideally we would like to use Asterisk at one of the locations to give
IVR
>facilities etc and treat the other locations as remote extensions.

>However both of the existing analogue lines would need to be routed
into
>Asterisk to allow incoming calls to be routed to any of the locations.
>
>I am considering a package from a VOIP supplier which provides two
>geographic and two non-geographic numbers on two voip lines. It also
>includes a fax to email and email to fax gateway.
>
>So questions=85.
>
>=20
>
>What will I need in the way of fxo and fxs hardware to achieve this ?

You'll need at least 2 fxo's, one for each phone line. For phones
themselve=
s
you might want to look at using ATA's either SIPURA or 168's

For the fxo's you could use sipura 3k's:

http://linitx.com/product_info.php?cPath=3D102&products_id=3D650
or
http://tinyurl.com/7cnth

and have an asterisk box at the main office. Firewall issues not
withstandi=
ng
it may be the simplest solution.=20

Alternatively you could put a low powered asterisk box at each location
and=
use
an fxo card (either Digium or Sangoma) - the fxo card's are probably going
=
to bump
this price though. You might also want to look at implementing DUNDi for
yo=
ur=20
routing so that if any of the asterisk boxes fail you can still route
calls=
over the PSTN.

>Will I need to put an Asterisk box in both of the locations with the
>analogue lines if I want to route calls from them to the other
locations?

Only if you want to. and TBH asterisk is free, and can run on pretty low
po=
wered=20
hardware for low call volumes so log as you don't use codecs like g729
etc.=
.


>We run two businesses and I would want to be able to distinguish which
>number people have dialled so it can be answered with the right company
>name can I do this with distinctive ringing ? Is this possible for the
sta=
ndard
>analogue lines as well as the voip numbers?

with asterisk you'll be able to identify which device the call came from -
=
simply use a=20
different context for each. If the phones/ATA's support caller id text you
=
could also set that before=20
ringing the phone. Distictive ring might work but I've never found
anything=
that's interested in=20
'obeying' any of the destictive ring stuff - but that could just be the
pho=
nes I use and I haven't tried
that hard.

Your idea to use a 3rd party voip provider is probably the simplest one to
=
do particularly
if it's someone like Gradwell who do IAX termination too. If you go this
ro=
ute you can do it in=20
different ways depending on how flexible the provider is.=20

1. Only use an ATA at each of the remote sites and an asterisk box at the
m=
ain location. Main location
registers with provider, all calls go via main site. Less resiliant, less
e=
xpensive,

2. asterisk boxen and ATA's  at each of the sites. All locations register
w=
ith provider, all calls go direct to=20
privoder, not via main site - More resiliant, more expensive

3. Skip the asterisk side of things completely and use a provider like
Grad=
well's hosted pbx...=20



Andy