asterisk users - Jan 2006 - Building from scratch, would like the benefit of everyone's experience

Hi all,

I am going to be building an Asterisk system to replace the current 
aging (aged) Nortel Meridian system in a travel agency.  There is 
already a voice T-1 in place and currently there are about 20 extensions 
in use.  I would want to move up to about 25 extensions immediately and 
about 30-35 within the year.

I am going to want IVR and voicemail, plus the ability to ring a group 
of phones at once if the caller wants a salesperson.

Here is what I am thinking of so far:
Server: Dell PowerEdge 1850 with redundant power supplies and hardware 
RAID 1 across 2 drives, running Centos 4.x - nice server with redundancy 
and only 1U
T-1 Interface: Digium TE110P

I would like any comments about those choices and also some comments 
about what phones would be good.  I can make the business case for 
almost any reasonable budget - I just need to know what would be best 
and if I need any other cards (Noise cancellation?) - If so I would 
probably have to go to a 2U server like a 2850.

The phones are my biggest question mark right now.  I know basically 
nothing about IP phones.  The only thing that I do know is that having 2 
ethernet ports would be very helpful since there is only 1 network 
connection per desk and that is already plugged into a PC.  I would like 
phones that allow static IPs (which I assume all do) so that the 
programmers can allow a Customer Service rep to bring up the sales 
record(s) of the person they are on the phone with based on their phone 
number.

Thanks for any help,
Warren

You could keep your phones if you used a Norstar SIP Handset Gateway from
http://www.citel.com/products/handset_gateways/

Each handset gateway allows you to convert up to 24 Norstar handsets from the
proprietary Norstar signalling protocol to SIP.

Other handset types are also supported.

Disclaimer: I work for Citel.

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com]On Behalf Of Warren
Sent: 17 January 2006 14:28
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Building from scratch,would like the benefit
of everyone's experience


Hi all,

I am going to be building an Asterisk system to replace the current 
aging (aged) Nortel Meridian system in a travel agency.  There is 
already a voice T-1 in place and currently there are about 20 extensions 
in use.  I would want to move up to about 25 extensions immediately and 
about 30-35 within the year.

I am going to want IVR and voicemail, plus the ability to ring a group 
of phones at once if the caller wants a salesperson.

Here is what I am thinking of so far:
Server: Dell PowerEdge 1850 with redundant power supplies and hardware 
RAID 1 across 2 drives, running Centos 4.x - nice server with redundancy 
and only 1U
T-1 Interface: Digium TE110P

I would like any comments about those choices and also some comments 
about what phones would be good.  I can make the business case for 
almost any reasonable budget - I just need to know what would be best 
and if I need any other cards (Noise cancellation?) - If so I would 
probably have to go to a 2U server like a 2850.

The phones are my biggest question mark right now.  I know basically 
nothing about IP phones.  The only thing that I do know is that having 2 
ethernet ports would be very helpful since there is only 1 network 
connection per desk and that is already plugged into a PC.  I would like 
phones that allow static IPs (which I assume all do) so that the 
programmers can allow a Customer Service rep to bring up the sales 
record(s) of the person they are on the phone with based on their phone 
number.

Thanks for any help,
Warren
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You could probably save some money by building the server from scratch 
rather than buying a dell. I would at least buy a 2 port T-1 card, just 
cause you're better off keeping only one card in the system and its only 
a few hundred dollars more for the 2 port. This will make it easier if 
you ever need to add another T-1 line.

They do make IP phones with built in switches or routers. I think that 
with IP phones you tend to get what you pay for. I would think almost 
any phone would allow a static IP.

If you are new to asterisk I think you should be able to do everything 
you are looking to do with Asterisk@Home.

Michael Sampson
Information Systems Manager
Customer Contact Services
msampson@yourccsteam.com
952-936-4000



Warren wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am going to be building an Asterisk system to replace the current 
> aging (aged) Nortel Meridian system in a travel agency.  There is 
> already a voice T-1 in place and currently there are about 20 
> extensions in use.  I would want to move up to about 25 extensions 
> immediately and about 30-35 within the year.
>
> I am going to want IVR and voicemail, plus the ability to ring a group 
> of phones at once if the caller wants a salesperson.
>
> Here is what I am thinking of so far:
> Server: Dell PowerEdge 1850 with redundant power supplies and hardware 
> RAID 1 across 2 drives, running Centos 4.x - nice server with 
> redundancy and only 1U
> T-1 Interface: Digium TE110P
>
> I would like any comments about those choices and also some comments 
> about what phones would be good.  I can make the business case for 
> almost any reasonable budget - I just need to know what would be best 
> and if I need any other cards (Noise cancellation?) - If so I would 
> probably have to go to a 2U server like a 2850.
>
> The phones are my biggest question mark right now.  I know basically 
> nothing about IP phones.  The only thing that I do know is that having 
> 2 ethernet ports would be very helpful since there is only 1 network 
> connection per desk and that is already plugged into a PC.  I would 
> like phones that allow static IPs (which I assume all do) so that the 
> programmers can allow a Customer Service rep to bring up the sales 
> record(s) of the person they are on the phone with based on their 
> phone number.
>
> Thanks for any help,
> Warren
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>
> Asterisk-Users mailing list
> To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit:
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>