Hi all, I'm currently tasked with implementing a low-cost, high performance and reliable telephone system for a motorcycle dealership in the UK, and Asterisk is my primary candidate for the system. My question is: can Asterisk work well as a small office (8 extensions) PBX, with a mixture of analogue and IP phones, on an ISDN2e telephone line from BT? The reason i am thinking of using ISDN2e is that i need to be able to have two lines, but with one number (i.e. if someone calls on the main number and stays on the call, and then a second person calls the same number, instead of an engaged tone, they will get through and another staff member can take the call). If there is another way to do this with anaologue lines, i'm open to suggestions. I have looked at using a service such as sipgate.co.uk to allow this to happen, however the fact that i can not list the number in a normal telephone directory would be prohibitive (though i will probably want to connect to a VoIP service for outbound calls also). If it does work well with ISDN, will features such as DDI (direct dial inwards) and caller id be possible? And can anyone recommend any hardware that will allow me to connect my asterisk PBX to the ISDN line? Many thanks for any information you can offer! Regards, Henry.
On Friday 08 April 2005 23:33, Henry Owens wrote:> Hi all, >> My question is: can Asterisk work well as a small office (8 extensions) > PBX, with a mixture of analogue and IP phones, on an ISDN2e telephone > line from BT?Sure, no problem at all.. Get yourself a 'Fritz!Card PCI' - also marketed by BT themselves as a 'BT Speedway ISDN' adapter - these seem to be the most cheap and supported of low-end ISDN2 adapters. chan_capi will deal with things like both B-channels so you can happily receive two calls on the same number, and deal with MSNs (Multiple Subscriber Numbers) gracefully since these are more likely on UK ISDN2e service than true DDIs. gdh
Hi Henry> staff member can take the call). If there is another way to do this with > anaologue lines, i'm open to suggestions. I have looked at using aYou used to be able (still can probably) do this with a thing called "auxiliary working" from BT on analogue lines. Two lines with one number, the second would take the call if the first were busy. I'd be tempted to steer clear of analogue though unless you really want it - I'm not sure how well it works directly hooked into the Asterisk server, but analogue on the voice gateways I've configured is just hard work a lot of the time. Good luck Dunc
Hi,> Get yourself a 'Fritz!Card PCI' - also marketed by BT themselves as a > 'BT Speedway ISDN' adapter - these seem to be the most cheap and > supported of low-end ISDN2 adaptersWill do - they seem pretty inexpensive (even for the BT Speedway card is only about ?35). From doing a bit of poking, SuSE 9.1 seems to be the latest OS for which drivers are available. Is anyone using one of these cards successfully, and if so, on SuSE? One more question (and probably a pretty basic one, but i'm not that familiar with PSTNs) - will i need two of these cards in order to use both channels? Looking forward to getting this going now, and much more confident, thanks for your support! Henry.
Hi 1) Don't bother considering analogue lines. Too problematic and not any cheaper in the long term. 2) the HFC chipset ISDN cards at ?13 are fine as long as you make sure you assign each card its own IRQ in the bios. http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.asp?sku=119006&cks=SPK I have 3 of these cards running in a Celeron 450. 2 cards in NT mode for ISDN phones and 1 connected to my BT ISDN 2e line. You will need bristuffed asterisk from www.junghanns.com to drive the cards. They use native zaptel drivers. DDI and caller ID on ISDN are all supported natively in Asterisk. Works perfectly in PTP and PTMP modes. Best regards Tim Robinson Basingstoke, UK Henry Owens wrote:> Hi all, > > I'm currently tasked with implementing a low-cost, high performance and > reliable telephone system for a motorcycle dealership in the UK, and > Asterisk is my primary candidate for the system. > > My question is: can Asterisk work well as a small office (8 extensions) > PBX, with a mixture of analogue and IP phones, on an ISDN2e telephone > line from BT? > > The reason i am thinking of using ISDN2e is that i need to be able to > have two lines, but with one number (i.e. if someone calls on the main > number and stays on the call, and then a second person calls the same > number, instead of an engaged tone, they will get through and another > staff member can take the call). If there is another way to do this with > anaologue lines, i'm open to suggestions. I have looked at using a > service such as sipgate.co.uk to allow this to happen, however the fact > that i can not list the number in a normal telephone directory would be > prohibitive (though i will probably want to connect to a VoIP service > for outbound calls also). > > If it does work well with ISDN, will features such as DDI (direct dial > inwards) and caller id be possible? And can anyone recommend any > hardware that will allow me to connect my asterisk PBX to the ISDN line? > > Many thanks for any information you can offer! > > Regards, > Henry. > _______________________________________________ > 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