asterisk users - Jan 2005 - Planning "hotel" phone system - Need input

Ok, I'm working on an implementation of Asterisk to service approximately 50
fractional (read: timeshare) residences.  Basically what I'm starting with
is a
hotel phone system, but with additional functionality that Asterisk can 
provide.  From the end user's perspective, I want the exact same
functionality
as the Telco provides (Caller ID, visual message waiting, etc) with a few minor 
modifications to the dialing plan.  Most calls will be transparent, but I want 
the ability to call the concierge, etc.  On the Management side, we'll
probably
have to integrate the configuration and call records into our property 
manangement software.

My base requirements are 2 lines per unit minimum (voice/fax) with standard TDM 
POTS distribution due to the geographic dispersity.  On the Telco side I'm 
thinking T1 DID w/ outgoing, as we'd like to have independant numbers for
each
unit, but not have to pay for 100 trunks.

The basic arrangement would be:
Telco <-> T1 <-> Asterisk <-> T1 <-> Channel Bank
<-> POTS <-> regular phone

Here are my questions thus far:

- Firstly, which channel bank would best suit me?  I only need FXS, but I'll
need Caller ID, Visual Message waiting, and a decent ring generator.  I
haven't
found much info on which FXS channel banks output FSK, or what loop length they 
can tolerate.  ASDI would be nice too, but not yet a requirement.

- Can someone point me in the direction of sample configs for DID applications?

- What size server will I need?  Assume for now a pair of quad-T1 cards, 2 T1s 
incoming, and 5 channel banks.  Shouldn't require much horsepower since
it's T1
<-> T1 switching

- Can I get my NMS AG-T1/E1 card working with Asterisk for tinkering purposes?

- What kind of uptime am I going to expect on Asterisk?  Am I going to have to 
reboot the server every 2 weeks?  Can I hope for carrier class service?

- Is it possible to change extensions on the fly?  For example, this week 555-
1111 rings in unit #10.  Next week theres a different tenant, so i want to make 
555-2222 ring in unit #10, and send 555-1111 to voicemail.  Some kind of GUI to 
accomplish this would also be nice.

Thanks in advance for your responses

~Rick

-----------
Rick Jonker
Systems Administrator
The Falls Resort Community
www.thefalls.ca

--On Monday, January 17, 2005 22:20 -0800 tech@thefalls.bc.ca wrote:

<...>
> The basic arrangement would be:
> Telco <-> T1 <-> Asterisk <-> T1 <-> Channel Bank
<-> POTS <-> regular
> phone
>
> Here are my questions thus far:
>
> - Firstly, which channel bank would best suit me?  I only need FXS, but
> I'll  need Caller ID, Visual Message waiting, and a decent ring
> generator.  I haven't  found much info on which FXS channel banks
output
> FSK, or what loop length they  can tolerate.  ASDI would be nice too, but
> not yet a requirement.
>
> - Can someone point me in the direction of sample configs for DID
> applications?
Check the asterisk wiki http://www.voip-info.org/  but basically incoming 
lines are tied to a context, with a T1 the phone company usually delivers a 
4 digit DID so you'll have an incoming context with a bunch of 4 digit DIDs 
*or* you can do something more complex and do a lookup to some sort of 
database, which for you might be ideal since you want things more dynamic. 
extension changes on the fly are definitely doable, reload reconfigures the 
extensions list without disturbing in-flight calls.
> - What size server will I need?  Assume for now a pair of quad-T1 cards,
> 2 T1s  incoming, and 5 channel banks.  Shouldn't require much
horsepower
> since it's T1  <-> T1 switching
Without transcoding you'll be able to get by with almost any mid to high 
end P4 Xeon (not celeron) system.  Go for the 1MB cache as the Pentiums 
really suffer badly without the extra cache in my experience, and the price 
jump is not that much.  go to a 2.8ghz and 1mb or a 3.0 ghz and 1mb instead 
of a higher clock rate.

You might want to consider one of the other options rather than the Digium 
hardware...someone had a link to some hardware that had onboard DSPs and 
was very similar to the Digium hardware otherwise.  This would certainly 
make a solution much more scaleable.  That said I think you'll be fine with 
2xQuad PRIs in the same box, and if you're worried though it'd be simple
to
split the Quad PRIs to two different boxes, then have them handoff to 
eachother only when necessary.

I'm posting probably later tonight a few bits of framework to 
asterisk-users here that I used to make a dialplan based 'agent' system 
since chan_agent was horribly and uselessly broken for me.  I'm still 
running 1.0/1.0.1 so I dont' know what's been fixed in 1.0.3 or 1.0.4 --
nor will i find out anytime quite soon, everything's in production now and 
i can't afford to experiment for lack of time at the moment.
> - Can I get my NMS AG-T1/E1 card working with Asterisk for tinkering
> purposes?
Uhm, probably not, but someone else can better answer this.
> - What kind of uptime am I going to expect on Asterisk?  Am I going to
> have to  reboot the server every 2 weeks?  Can I hope for carrier class
> service?
I'm having problems with 1.0 and 1.0.1 on the analog TDM ports after about 
a week to two weeks, they stop ringing.  However I'm pretty sure there are 
patches in that fix this as of 1.0.2.  I haven't had time to investigate it 
nor upgrade but scheduling a late night reboot after checking for live 
channels has me fixed for the time being.  The T1 card has been flawless 
since we put it in.
> - Is it possible to change extensions on the fly?  For example, this week
> 555- 1111 rings in unit #10.  Next week theres a different tenant, so i
> want to make  555-2222 ring in unit #10, and send 555-1111 to voicemail.
> Some kind of GUI to  accomplish this would also be nice.
See my above note....I am not aware of anything exists out of the box, but 
there are certainly those whose services could be contracted to produce 
this.
>
> Thanks in advance for your responses

On Jan 17, 2005, at 10:20 PM, tech@thefalls.bc.ca wrote:
> - What size server will I need?  Assume for now a pair of quad-T1 
> cards, 2 T1s
> incoming, and 5 channel banks.  Shouldn't require much horsepower 
> since it's T1
> <-> T1 switching
You might want to consider breaking this up a bit, just for ease of 
reliability and maintenance.  If everything's all on one box, then it's 
impossible to do maintenance without taking out *everything*.  If you 
divide it up a bit, then you can take down half of your external lines 
at a time, probably without losing any real functionality.
> - Can I get my NMS AG-T1/E1 card working with Asterisk for tinkering 
> purposes?
Probably not.
> - What kind of uptime am I going to expect on Asterisk?  Am I going to 
> have to
> reboot the server every 2 weeks?  Can I hope for carrier class service?
In my experience, you should see similar reliability to other 
Linux-based network services once you get things up and running.  Which 
is to say, I'd expect uptimes of 1-10 months, depending on usage levels 
and security upgrades.  That's not carrier-class, though.
> - Is it possible to change extensions on the fly?  For example, this 
> week 555-
> 1111 rings in unit #10.  Next week theres a different tenant, so i 
> want to make
> 555-2222 ring in unit #10, and send 555-1111 to voicemail.  Some kind 
> of GUI to
> accomplish this would also be nice.
That's pretty easy.  The user interface for it will be tricker, but the 
back-end logic is really simple.

One other thing to consider--the useful lifespan of an Asterisk system 
is probably somewhere around 5 years.  After that, you'll probably want 
to replace it with something newer, even if it's just Asterisk running 
on newer, faster PCs.  During those 5 years, you'll probably need to 
replace a hard drive or two, and maybe one or two other components, 
like power supplies.  You'll probably also want to install security 
upgrades from time to time.  Asterisk is a powerful system, but it 
requires some amount of ongoing maintenance, and that's something that 
you'll probably want to factor into your plans.  You can't just install 
it and then leave it alone for years at a time, unlike some cheap phone 
systems.  The payback for that is that it's vastly more capable and 
generally a lot cheaper then competing solutions.


Scott

Michael Loftis wrote:
> 
> 
> --On Monday, January 17, 2005 22:20 -0800 tech@thefalls.bc.ca wrote:
> 
> <...>
> 
>> The basic arrangement would be:
>> Telco <-> T1 <-> Asterisk <-> T1 <-> Channel
Bank <-> POTS <-> regular
>> phone
Have you thought about how the asterisk system will send CDR to the 
property management system?  How the PMS will turn on/off the room 
phones?  How the maids will indicate, to the PMS, the room is ready for 
sale?