asterisk users - Aug 2004 - is gatekeeper required?

Hi all,

I have one asterisk server with one ISDN BRI connection to PSTN,
with h.323 support (oh323)

I buy some voip phones, and I connect them to the same switch as asterisk
server is; all is at the same TCP network.

I need to route some extensions from my DDI (DID) line at asterisk to
some voip phones, and also to do:
outgoing calls from any voip phone to PSTN via asterisk, and
intermediate calls among voip phones themselves (each other).

my voip phone has own IP, so I can route incoming call to them by:

exten  => 59305005,1,Dial(H323/${EXTEN}@192.168.0.11)

My question is how can I do outgoing calls?
Need I call firstly IP of asterisk and then to enter phone # to PSTN?
respectively, how can voip phone knows to which IP to connect?
Is this problem solved by gatekeeper? need I one.

Is there anywhere a BIG PICTURE (scheme) how asterisks can work with
voip phones (h.323)?

THANK you very much for help.

ml_asterisk-users@rajnoch.sk schrieb:
> ...
> My question is how can I do outgoing calls?
> Need I call firstly IP of asterisk and then to enter phone # to PSTN?
> respectively, how can voip phone knows to which IP to connect?
> Is this problem solved by gatekeeper? need I one.
> ...

Hi,

this depends on your H323 phones.
The more expensive ones (snom, innovaphone, ...) have direct
mode, gateway mode and gatekeeper mode.

Use the gateway mode, setup your gateway in the H323 phones,
and you won't need a gatekeeper.

Some cheap phones, like those from Planet, don't have the gateway
mode. In such case you'll need a gatekeeper (or you would have
to add @<gateway-address> at each number, you want to dial).

The Topway phones, which PLANinterNET is selling is a cheap H323 phone
with gateway support.


Roger.