How to make asterisk work?

[spiffytech]

My company is trying to get a PBX working, and I's thinking about using Asterisk. I's wondering, with your experience with that, what does it take to get it up and running? What's the easiet/most reliable solution? How about managing extensions? Is there any ISP/phone company stuff needed to make it work? We're looking into Vonage, does that affect anything?

[Linc]

My company is trying to get a PBX working, and I's thinking about using Asterisk. I's wondering, with your experience with that, what does it take to get it up and running? What's the easiet/most reliable solution? How about managing extensions? Is there any ISP/phone company stuff needed to make it work? We're looking into Vonage, does that affect anything?

Well, I used asterisk@home and went from 0 to working config in a little over 2 hrs (with absolutely no idea wtf I was doing). I used broadvoice as my phone service provider but imagine vonage would do just as well. You'll need ip phones, adapters, or soft phones (or any combination) to start making calls with. Extensions are a piece of cake - they are controlled and set up via an easy to use web interface.

[Karl]

I run Asterisk. But its just a small setup at my house. So I can't really speak on what a company should use.

It has been very reliable for me though.

I know that Vonage is not compatible with Asterisk. They only will work with locked devices they sell.

Check out http://www.voip-info.org. They have a list of compatible providers .

[snarkout]

Unless you have a background in telcom, you'll be taking on a HUGE task even setting up asterisk in an office setting. Add voip to that and you're looking at a major pita. What sort of pipe do you have right now? If you have t1 or better, and your provider is willing to help you with fairqueue/traffic shaping, it might be worth a shot. It would be insanity over dsl.

[Patrick]

I'm with Snarkout with this. It's not easy thing to implement especially in a work environement. You have to know what you're doing. Our friend John Goerzen just posted this on his blog:
http://changelog.complete.org/node/455

Definitely try asterisk@home first and set it up with a voip provider. The voip provider will get you a real world phone number, convert and route standard POTS calls to/from your asterisk server. Like Linc mentioned we use broadvoice as our provider. The basic plan is like $8 a month for unlimited incoming calls. There are more plan options as well. Companies supporting Asterisk are springing up all over the place. It's definitely a cheaper option than what's available in the 'closed' world of PBXs.

[spiffytech]

What was it like getting hardware for the computer tower to support the phone calls? Anything especially special needed? Is it very expensive?

I know that Vonage provides an ethernet -> phone adapter with their service. Does that change anything?

I'll look into your provider and see if they'd work for us.

[Patrick]

What was it like getting hardware for the computer tower to support the phone calls? Anything especially special needed? Is it very expensive?

I know that Vonage provides an ethernet -> phone adapter with their service. Does that change anything?

I'll look into your provider and see if they'd work for us.

For the show we just use a softphone (xlite, aixcomm, etc..) so we didn't have to buy anything. For standard POTS phones you'll need a convertor box like a Sipura (SPA-3000) or something similiar. They also sell PCI cards for multiple phones to use. The Sipura basically assigns an IP address for the phone and converts the signal. They are comparable devices out there. I would recommend 'playing' with Astersik@home and a softphone to get your feet wet. Then maybe getting some hardware if it's something you want to pursue. Our Asterisk box is my old 800mhz workstation.

[Karl]

What was it like getting hardware for the computer tower to support the phone calls? Anything especially special needed? Is it very expensive?

Hardware price ranges on what your gonna connect and how many phones your gonna support. And what kind of phones.

If your gonna use all voip, internal phones and for calling outside then you do not need any special hardware. But if you start connecting PSTN lines and T1s then you need special hardware.

As Pat and Snarkout said. Get Asterisk@home. Get the Broadvoice Bring your own device plan and play with it. Then go from there on what you'll need to do with it. Doing that will atleast give you an idea of what will be involved.

Asterisk supports a very wide range of devices and configurations, so there is no one answer on how to do something with it or how it should be done.

[Linc]

I'm with Snarkout with this. It's not easy thing to implement especially in a work environement. You have to know what you're doing. Our friend John Goerzen just posted this on his blog:
http://changelog.complete.org/node/455

Definitely try asterisk@home first and set it up with a voip provider. The voip provider will get you a real world phone number, convert and route standard POTS calls to/from your asterisk server. Like Linc mentioned we use broadvoice as our provider. The basic plan is like $8 a month for unlimited incoming calls. There are more plan options as well. Companies supporting Asterisk are springing up all over the place. It's definitely a cheaper option than what's available in the 'closed' world of PBXs.

Yes, I also have broadvoice and asterisk@home as my *only* phone service at home. Yup folks, I am all voip here. There have only been a couple instances where there were any problems, but they were only for a couple hours a piece and that fact that my phone bill went from $60 to $15 a month pretty much negates those. The plan I am on lets me call anyone in my state for free and out of state is LD and around 3 cents per minute. I also think that in-provider calls are free as well. All that for $15 a month and an old computer for me to run asterisk@home on. It's a good deal and fun to play with as well