Re: [PLUG] Asterisk advice

[Joe Terranova <joeterranova@gmail.com>]

The VOIP provider I'd recommend is VoIP.ms

http://voip.ms/dids.php?action=statesearch&state=PA

You can get a phone number for 1.50 a month, and pay per minute, or
you can 6.95 a month, and get free incoming and 3500 minutes outgoing.
There are quite a few VOIP providers, I just point them out because
I've used them and haven't had any problems.

Asterisk is not /terribly/ hard to set up, but can be a little
confusing. There's really two options: write asterisk configuration
files yourself (in which case you might as well just throw linux on a
server and compile asterisk on it), or use FreePBX as a web frontend.
If you're using FreePBX, you can, again, throw linux on a server,
compile asterisk, install FreePBX, or you can download AsteriskNow, or
Trixbox. FreePBX makes things really easy, and has a lot of features
built in -- stuff you could do yourself, if you scripted it all in
Asterisk.

You don't necessarily need to get a card, either; I've had a lot of
success using little boxes that have phone jacks in, ethernet out, and
act as SIP clients. The one I've used is the Linksys PAP2T-NA:
http://www.voiplink.com/Linksys_PAP2_NA_p/linksys-pap2-na.htm
It can connect 2 analog phones.

Boxes like the PAP2T are sip clients. They could be clients to
Asterisk, or to your SIP provider. If you don't need the extra
features of asterisk, and really just want this as separate phone
line, all you need is an account with a SIP provider, a box like the
PAP2, and you're set. You just set up the PAP2 to connect to your sip
provider. You would basically just be replacing magic jack with an
identical, more reliable setup.

Keep in mind, if you went with the pay per minute plan, you can have
up to 25 simultaneous calls. You could run an entire call center. For
that, you'd want asterisk.

Hope that helps, let me know if you have more questions.

Joe Terranova
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