Re: [PLUG] Asterisk advice

[Lee Marzke <lee@marzke.net>]

On 03/25/2011 12:51 AM, Tom Diehl wrote:
> On Tue, 22 Mar 2011, Eric at Lucii.org wrote:
>
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> > Hash: SHA1
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> > I currently use a Magic Jack as a second/business phone line but I 
> > want to get
> > away from it.  I looked at NetTalk (Nettalk.com) for $70 and it looks 
> > most
> > decent but it's features are limited and I've read some complaints 
> > about voice
> > quality.
> >
> > Now I'm wondering if it would be better to set up my own asterisk 
> > box.  I know
> > that I have to use a provider like Vitelity (or similar) to get my phone
> > numbers.  I'll have to add a card to support the existing analog phone
> > infrastructure in the house/office.  I have a couple of extra 
> > computers here and
> > I'm reasonably certain that either one of them is up to the task.
>
> If you get a sip phone you do not need a card for the analog phones. 
> Depending on
> your needs you might be able to get sip phones cheaper then it will 
> cost you for
> a good card to make the analog phones work.
Agree,   most of your phones should be SIP if possible.   Something like 
Sipura 942,  with
one of the inexpensive/compatible POE injectors so the phone doesn't 
need a power
adapter next to it.

> > Is that about it?  Is Asterisk a bear to set up?  I'm a bit of a 
> > hacker but have
> > only minimal telephony knowledge.  I keep seeing trixbox community 
> > edition
> > mentioned... is that a good way to get up and running?
>
> I would suggest staying away from TrixBox. IIRC Trixbox forked Freepbx
> and broke it.
Not sure I like the way Trixbox changed things and every release seems 
to break
the previous configs,    but I'm using Trixbox CE 2.8.0.4 now in my 
office now and it's
running fine and is very stable.

I have a feature where after business hours,  the caller can still push 
2 for an urgent
call to route the call to my cell instead of voicemail.   So I don't 
give out my cell number
and this features seems to not be abused so far.   This is easy on 
Trixbox,  but not sure
I saw all the features to do this on AsteriskNow last time I looked.  
Maybe it has
more features now.


> Digium has AsteriskNow and it works well for me. Using freepbx to 
> administer AsteriskNow takes a lot of the pain out of things. I have 
> also used pbxinaflash
> which has a very active community and you can also administer things 
> using
> freepbx. The reason I switched to * now is that piaf has a lot of closed
> source scripts that make understanding what is going on difficult.
>
> As for voip providers, I have used FLowroute, voip.ms Vitelity and a 
> few other pay as you go providers. I am currently using Flowroute as 
> my primary provider with
> voip.ms as a backup. I gave up Vitelity completely because I was 
> having difficulty completing calls during mid afternoon and frequent 
> dropped calls.

I've used Vitelity as my main SIP and vFAX provider for years with no 
issues.
> Hope this helps,


--
"Between subtle shading and the absence of light lies the nuance of iqlusion..."  - Kryptos

Lee Marzke,     lee@marzke.net

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