Hi, At our other site in the UK we currently have a rather old Nortel BCM (4000 I think), with an ISDN30 feed and 15-16 or so digital extensions (Meridian of some description). The ISDN comes in as HSDSL over a twisted copper pair to a small BT box, then ethernet to the BCM. We'd like to do, at least, inter-office VoIP calls. However I believe making trunks between asterisk and BCM isn't the easiest thing in the world, and my brief exploration of the BCM configuration bears that out. Plus we don't have any licences for VoIP. If I were to recommend replacing the BCM with an asterisk machine, what special hardware/cards would I need? (I so don't understand how US line designations fit in with UK style lines) I'm open to replacing phones if the kit to interface with digital phones costs more than buying SIP phones, every desk already has at least 2 cat5e points. Thanks -- Mike Williams
You can interface between the digital phones and an Asterisk machine using a Citel SIP Handset Gateway from www.citel.com. The sales department on +44 (0)115 940 5444 will be able to give you some pricing. -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Mike Williams Sent: 27 September 2006 10:56 To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [asterisk-users] ISDN30 and digital phones Hi, At our other site in the UK we currently have a rather old Nortel BCM (4000 I think), with an ISDN30 feed and 15-16 or so digital extensions (Meridian of some description). The ISDN comes in as HSDSL over a twisted copper pair to a small BT box, then ethernet to the BCM. We'd like to do, at least, inter-office VoIP calls. However I believe making trunks between asterisk and BCM isn't the easiest thing in the world, and my brief exploration of the BCM configuration bears that out. Plus we don't have any licences for VoIP. If I were to recommend replacing the BCM with an asterisk machine, what special hardware/cards would I need? (I so don't understand how US line designations fit in with UK style lines) I'm open to replacing phones if the kit to interface with digital phones costs more than buying SIP phones, every desk already has at least 2 cat5e points. Thanks -- Mike Williams _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- asterisk-users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
On 27 Sep 2006, at 10:56, Mike Williams wrote:> Hi, > > At our other site in the UK we currently have a rather old Nortel > BCM (4000 I > think), with an ISDN30 feed and 15-16 or so digital extensions > (Meridian of > some description). > The ISDN comes in as HSDSL over a twisted copper pair to a small BT > box, then > ethernet to the BCM. > > We'd like to do, at least, inter-office VoIP calls. However I > believe making > trunks between asterisk and BCM isn't the easiest thing in the > world, and my > brief exploration of the BCM configuration bears that out. Plus we > don't have > any licences for VoIP. > > If I were to recommend replacing the BCM with an asterisk machine, > what > special hardware/cards would I need? (I so don't understand how US > line > designations fit in with UK style lines) > I'm open to replacing phones if the kit to interface with digital > phones costs > more than buying SIP phones, every desk already has at least 2 > cat5e points.One way you could do this would be to put an asterisk box in between the Meridian and the ISDN30. You put a dual (or quad) E1 card into the asterisk machine. You then write a simple dialplan that (by default) passes all calls straight through the asterisk machine untouched. Once you have that working, you add rules such that outgoing calls to your other offices are excluded from this process and sent via VOIP. Done right the Nortel will be blissfully unaware of the fact that the asterisk box is even there. (over time you can add features/ functionality to the VOIP area - voicemail , call monitoring etc.) No new phones, no new hardware except the asterisk system. You _should_ even be able to do faxing on the Nortel, provided you prevent the asterisk machine from doing echo canceling on fax calls. The only down-side is that you only get 30 channels to your asterisk, but given that you have only 16 extensions anyway.... Tim.