Hello! I am projecting a replacement telephone system for a small organization in the UK. Our old pbx is showing signs of age and will probably soon go into pension. The old system consists of a mix of 4 wire lines terminated with proprietary telephones and 2 wire lines with standard 2 wire telephones. The system connects to the PSTN via three BT lines. I would like to replace the old system with an asterisk based system and would like to implement it as a hybrid solution containing IP phones and standard 2 wire phones. At present we have got a small experimental setup that has got Asterisk running on SuSE Linux 9.0 with two Grandstream BT100 IP phones and one 2wire phone on a Grandstream HandyTone 286 adapter which I use. The Asterisk box is connected to a BT line via a Digium Wildcard X100P card. If we do internal phone calls we have no problem with any connections. However, outgoing calls are somewhat different - No problems have been reported with the BT100 telephones, but the HandyTone connection has some problems: * When I get the outside (PSTN) line and dial a number, I sometimes get connected to the wrong number. * At one time I had a conversation and after about 20 minutes there came a pulsating noise which slowly increased until I couldn't hear the other party any more and had to stop the conversation and phone the person via the other pbx. * I tried different phones on the ht adaptor but only one phone rings when I get a phone call. At present the plans are: * The IP phones are connected to a switch and the switch is connected to the asterisk box via a network card. The asterisk box would be a standard PC with Asterisk running on SuSE Linux 9.0. * The 2wire phones are connected to a channel bank and the channel bank has got a T1 port which is connected to the asterisk box via a T1 card. My question concerns the channel bank. We would like to use a Carrier Access ADIT 600 with * 1 dual T1 controller card * 1 230 VAC/-48 VDC Power supply/charger card * 5 fxs 8 channel voice service cards (which allows us to connect up to 40 telephones) * 1 fxo/dpt 8-channel voice service card (to connect the three BT lines; a bit of a waste, but I couldn't find an fxo card with less fxo ports). To connect the channel bank to the asterisk box we would equip that box with a Digium Wildcard T100P card and use a cable terminated with RJ48 plugs on both ends. My questions are: * Is it legal in the UK to connect an Adit 600 channel bank (with the fxo card) to a BT line (PSTN)? In the technical specification sheet that I downloaded from the carrier access website there is mention of different regulatory approvals: - FCC Part 68, CS-03 (not registered for connection to the PSTN) - FCC Part 15, ICES-003 Class A - NRTL safety listed: UL 1950, CSA C22.2 No. 950 - NEBS Level-3 certified as type 2 and 4 equipment (Intrabuilding) - TelcordiaTM GR-63-CORE, GR-1089-CORE If not, does anyone know of another legal way to bring three BT lines to an asterisk box? * Has anyone noticed problems connecting UK PSTN lines to the channel bank with the aforementioned fxo card? Would dialling work satisfactorily? What about ringing when outside calls come in? What about the audio quality? Would prolonged conversations be sustainable? * Has anyone noticed problems connecting standard 2wire phones to the channel bank with the aforementioned fxs cards? With standard 2wire phones I mean phones that one can buy in any shop. We had some question marks over this issue because of the problems with the handytone adaptor - but my personal opinion is that there is a world of difference between the channel bank and the ht adaptor; however, we need to be sure of that. * Is it conform to the UK standard to use a T1 connection between asterisk and the adit 600, or should we rather use an E1 connection? We want to avoid locking ourself into having to buy spare parts from the US in case the T1 connection breaks down. Can we get T1 cards in the UK or would people rather recommend E1? The Adit 600 can also be equipped with a controller that has 2 E1 ports. Thank you very much for your considerations! -- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary, and those who don't.