asterisk users - Apr 2005 - Connecting asterisk to existing PBX - newbie question

I have a question regarding interoperability between Asterisk and an 
Inter-Tel (I believe it's an Axxess) PBX at a client's location.

My clients currently have an Inter-Tel system that they're fairly happy 
with but they're being bludgeoned by Inter-Tel for their proprietary IP 
based phones. The phones themselves are on the order of $1,000 each 
(they're in a lease and only see the monthly charge when they add a new 
phone. That $1000 is a rough approximation on my part from the last 
lease addition which was $24/month with 42 months remaining).

I believe that many of the people that they have who are currently using 
the proprietary phones would be quite happy with a basic SIP phone (they 
don't need ACD login or other advanced features) however Inter-Tel's SIP
gateway product is quite expensive. The sales person never actually gave 
me a real quote but said things like "pushing $10,000" and "very 
expensive" and "You don't really want it". My feeling was
that they want
to keep this client with their proprietary phones (and at $1000 each I 
can see why).

I think that I could craft a gateway of some sort out of an Asterisk box 
doing nothing but taking a handoff from the Inter-Tel PBX and passing it 
out to SIP phones attached to the Asterisk machine but I'm not 
absolutely certain how to go about it. Off the top of my head I see two 
rough directions to go but I'm somewhat out of my depth and would 
appreciate any insight, particularly with regard to the details <g>.

First, I could take an existing 'single line card' in the Inter-Tel 
system (8 FXS ports already installed in the existing PBX) and run that 
into 8 FXO ports on the Asterisk machine. I'm assuming that from there 
it would be a fairly straightforward to set up a 1 to 1 mapping of 
incoming FXO to connected SIP phones.

Second, I could take an existing T1 card (I'd have to buy an upgrade to 
get PRI functionality if required) and connect it to the Asterisk box. 
At first glance this seems to be a more flexible and better solution but 
I believe that on the Inter-Tel side I'd have some issues with mapping 
extensions to the outgoing PRI ports and/or extensions on the asterisk 
side and a fair amount of jiggling to get things working right.

Alternatively, would it be possible to just stick something like the 
AudioCodes MP108-FXO in the middle of the 8 FXS ports on the Inter-Tel 
PBX and some SIP phones? Initially I thought that this would work but 
further reading has led me to think that this wouldn't work and that's 
what led me back to Asterisk.

That's my very rough thinking. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 
Also, I'm sorry if this has been covered before on the list or 
elsewhere. I spent some time digging through the archives and couldn't 
find anything helpful but I'm sure that I wasn't perfectly thorough.

Dan Reagan

Hi Dan,

First, i seem to have found myself in about the same dilema where another
phone reseller tried to push a client into a 45k+ solution from
Televantage, which i must say from what i have seen seems to be the
crapiest software on the market today, though hailed by some telco's as
the next biggest thing. (Maybe someone here can explaain more as per why
the hell the software of televantage is soo crapy expensive and sooooo
unstable) .. Anyways enuf of the rant..

Sip phones can run you in the order of about 1k per set aswell, looking at
some of the cisco's, but if a basic sip hand set is fine, like a polycom,
or a siemens hipoint (not sure of their prices, but nice sets anyways), i
can definitly see the solution.

As per your solution, i would just stick a couple TDM400p cards in there
with 4fxs slots, and if required that you need a pri, you can still do
this as such. Depending on the existing phones, the inter-tel ones, you
might be able to use them directly on the asterisk system aswell ..

Cheap cost .. less then 1 phone for a couple cards, and a basic system
depending on user amount you might be able to get away with a older P3.

Hope that helps

S.


On Wed, 6 Apr 2005, Dan Reagan wrote:
> I have a question regarding interoperability between Asterisk and an
> Inter-Tel (I believe it's an Axxess) PBX at a client's location.
>
> My clients currently have an Inter-Tel system that they're fairly happy
> with but they're being bludgeoned by Inter-Tel for their proprietary IP
> based phones. The phones themselves are on the order of $1,000 each
> (they're in a lease and only see the monthly charge when they add a new
> phone. That $1000 is a rough approximation on my part from the last
> lease addition which was $24/month with 42 months remaining).
>
> I believe that many of the people that they have who are currently using
> the proprietary phones would be quite happy with a basic SIP phone (they
> don't need ACD login or other advanced features) however
Inter-Tel's SIP
> gateway product is quite expensive. The sales person never actually gave
> me a real quote but said things like "pushing $10,000" and
"very
> expensive" and "You don't really want it". My feeling
was that they want
> to keep this client with their proprietary phones (and at $1000 each I
> can see why).
>
> I think that I could craft a gateway of some sort out of an Asterisk box
> doing nothing but taking a handoff from the Inter-Tel PBX and passing it
> out to SIP phones attached to the Asterisk machine but I'm not
> absolutely certain how to go about it. Off the top of my head I see two
> rough directions to go but I'm somewhat out of my depth and would
> appreciate any insight, particularly with regard to the details <g>.
>
> First, I could take an existing 'single line card' in the Inter-Tel
> system (8 FXS ports already installed in the existing PBX) and run that
> into 8 FXO ports on the Asterisk machine. I'm assuming that from there
> it would be a fairly straightforward to set up a 1 to 1 mapping of
> incoming FXO to connected SIP phones.
>
> Second, I could take an existing T1 card (I'd have to buy an upgrade to
> get PRI functionality if required) and connect it to the Asterisk box.
> At first glance this seems to be a more flexible and better solution but
> I believe that on the Inter-Tel side I'd have some issues with mapping
> extensions to the outgoing PRI ports and/or extensions on the asterisk
> side and a fair amount of jiggling to get things working right.
>
> Alternatively, would it be possible to just stick something like the
> AudioCodes MP108-FXO in the middle of the 8 FXS ports on the Inter-Tel
> PBX and some SIP phones? Initially I thought that this would work but
> further reading has led me to think that this wouldn't work and
that's
> what led me back to Asterisk.
>
> That's my very rough thinking. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
> Also, I'm sorry if this has been covered before on the list or
> elsewhere. I spent some time digging through the archives and couldn't
> find anything helpful but I'm sure that I wasn't perfectly
thorough.
>
> Dan Reagan
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>    http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>

Dan,

  Let me know how this works out for you.  I have an inter-tel Axxess 
system with an SLC16 card and I'm currently working with Asterisk to 
integrate it in for remote phone systems.  We have gotten around some if 
Inter-Tel's extreme fees by picking up hardware through wholesalers, 
resellers and on ebay.  What I want to do is create basically a 
connected PBX using 4 of the lines from the SLC 16 card into the axxess 
card.  My curiosity is inter-PBX communications and getting the dialing 
plan correct for these phones.  My overall plan is to provide software 
phones to the managers and executives at their residences that are 
directly connected to the system for inter-office communications, and 
not necessarily to allow them to dial out to the world via our PBX.

  Basically, I want anyone on the asterisk system to be able to pick up 
their line, dial "x" and then be able to dial any extension within the
inter-tel PBX.  The reverse being that anyone can pick up one of the 
office phones, dial a set extension and then dial the home extensions on 
the Asterisk system.  If I can provide those two basic functions, 
anything beyond that is cake.  I like the asterisk system and could see 
us eventually replacing the entire Axxess system with it, once I become 
more proficient in scripting on the asterisk system.

GP


Dan Reagan wrote:
> I have a question regarding interoperability between Asterisk and an 
> Inter-Tel (I believe it's an Axxess) PBX at a client's location.
>
> My clients currently have an Inter-Tel system that they're fairly 
> happy with but they're being bludgeoned by Inter-Tel for their 
> proprietary IP based phones. The phones themselves are on the order of 
> $1,000 each (they're in a lease and only see the monthly charge when 
> they add a new phone. That $1000 is a rough approximation on my part 
> from the last lease addition which was $24/month with 42 months 
> remaining).
>
> I believe that many of the people that they have who are currently 
> using the proprietary phones would be quite happy with a basic SIP 
> phone (they don't need ACD login or other advanced features) however 
> Inter-Tel's SIP gateway product is quite expensive. The sales person 
> never actually gave me a real quote but said things like "pushing 
> $10,000" and "very expensive" and "You don't really
want it". My
> feeling was that they want to keep this client with their proprietary 
> phones (and at $1000 each I can see why).
>
> I think that I could craft a gateway of some sort out of an Asterisk 
> box doing nothing but taking a handoff from the Inter-Tel PBX and 
> passing it out to SIP phones attached to the Asterisk machine but I'm 
> not absolutely certain how to go about it. Off the top of my head I 
> see two rough directions to go but I'm somewhat out of my depth and 
> would appreciate any insight, particularly with regard to the details 
> <g>.
>
> First, I could take an existing 'single line card' in the Inter-Tel
> system (8 FXS ports already installed in the existing PBX) and run 
> that into 8 FXO ports on the Asterisk machine. I'm assuming that from 
> there it would be a fairly straightforward to set up a 1 to 1 mapping 
> of incoming FXO to connected SIP phones.
>
> Second, I could take an existing T1 card (I'd have to buy an upgrade 
> to get PRI functionality if required) and connect it to the Asterisk 
> box. At first glance this seems to be a more flexible and better 
> solution but I believe that on the Inter-Tel side I'd have some issues 
> with mapping extensions to the outgoing PRI ports and/or extensions on 
> the asterisk side and a fair amount of jiggling to get things working 
> right.
>
> Alternatively, would it be possible to just stick something like the 
> AudioCodes MP108-FXO in the middle of the 8 FXS ports on the Inter-Tel 
> PBX and some SIP phones? Initially I thought that this would work but 
> further reading has led me to think that this wouldn't work and
that's
> what led me back to Asterisk.
>
> That's my very rough thinking. Any help would be greatly appreciated. 
> Also, I'm sorry if this has been covered before on the list or 
> elsewhere. I spent some time digging through the archives and couldn't 
> find anything helpful but I'm sure that I wasn't perfectly
thorough.
>
> Dan Reagan
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> Asterisk-Users@lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
>   http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>
>

-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.9.5 - Release Date: 4/7/2005