VOIP - Asterisk - Intercom/Phone System

[scottb]

VoIP SIP is UDP which is unforgiving on any latency and network congestion. I had the same issues but I had my phones on the same network as my data. Once I separated the voice from the data I had zero issues. Vlan1 = data, Vlan2 = voice. They both share the same internet connection which is a single T1. But I did reserve bandwidth for voice to ensure no interruption.

[cyburdine]

So taking this idea one step further... why not utilize this setup for your production intercoms. We've been running on an asterisk system now for almost a year and it's been amazing. I am working up a build tutorial so that others can easily setup this type of system. It really is a lot easier and more reliable than most people give it credit.

[chickenrob]

Cool would love to see your setup so post when you get it thanks.

[camtech]

I would love to see some example astersik setups in churches (or small businesses).

Our 12ish year old Nortel Norstar system recently died and I was seriously considering lobbying for using asterisk as a replacement...if I could find some examples of other successful applications of it. But a part was replaced a day later and the current phone system is still chugging along.

Nevertheless, it's still definitely worth researching more (and considering the relatively low cost, still a very viable option for the future).

If I am not mistaken; although it can, asterisk does not even need an internet connection to function. It is only if you were to say, want to seamlessly connect separate physical locations that you would want to do that. Otherwise, you would connect as many in lines as you have to your asterisk server, then connect a line to your (preferably vlan'd) network w/ SIP phones and/or (with additional traditional phone cards in the server) to your good 'ol POTS phones.

(That was sort of a question)


So, anyone have a good asterisk setup they would like to share?

And what are some good SIP phones you would recommend, both quality and cost-wise?

[cyburdine]

To be clear, there are thousands of successful Asterisk installs across the US from home users to large call centers. So I would not be afraid to jump in and get your hands dirty playing around. it will cost you nothing to setup, other than your time and an old pc.

As far as how you can use Asterisk, you don't have to have it hooked up to an internet connection, however, that is where it can really shine. Currently, I pay 1.3 cents per minute per channel in and outbound. When I compare that to what businesses/churches pay per "business" line that comes to around $50 per line coming into the building so say you have 3 lines, that's $150 per month + whatever LD, extras and taxes. When you apply that cost to using voip you get 11,538 minutes that I would have payed for. I'm betting a 3 phone line church is not using 11k minutes a month. So take 100 of that away and apply it towards upping your internet connection and you are left with 3800 minutes, which is still lot.

as far as setups I've built quite a few and they are as diverse as you can imagine. Which is what I like about Asterisk, if you can dream it, it most likely can be setup to do it.

As far as phones Polycom or Cisco's are great. I'm a bit partial to the Cisco's as they are a great phone and can be purchased on ebay for ~$50 if you are patient.

You can also get started building and testing an asterisk box by just connecting soft phones to it. x-lite is free and will get you quite far with testing quality and capabilities of an Asterisk box.

One last thing in my long ramble here, is to look at a hosted asterisk solution. There are quiet a few companies out there that will manage all the hardware and software maintenance and just let you use your phones. This does require a internet connection but frees up some of the worry and hassle of managing a PBX.

I could go on but I'll stop at the risk of over explaining.

-jb

[camtech]

That is some good info!
In my situation, we unfortunately do not have particularly good internet (dsl, yay.) since there is no cable to our building so it might be hard to support pure voip calls, though it would be nice.

I've been testing out a few different GUIs the last couple days in virtual machines just to get a feel for it. Yay for VMs!

Is there a particular GUI you like or do you just go all out conf files?

Personally, I'm fairly impartial but a gui would be much easier for future admins to pick up (trying to be at least somewhat dispensable here).

Thanks for all the good info so far!

[cyburdine]

Originally Posted by camtech

That is some good info!
In my situation, we unfortunately do not have particularly good internet (dsl, yay.) since there is no cable to our building so it might be hard to support pure voip calls, though it would be nice.

I've been testing out a few different GUIs the last couple days in virtual machines just to get a feel for it. Yay for VMs!

Is there a particular GUI you like or do you just go all out conf files?

Personally, I'm fairly impartial but a gui would be much easier for future admins to pick up (trying to be at least somewhat dispensable here).

Thanks for all the good info so far!

yeah, a single channel of voip needs a steady 90k up and down. So if you are on dsl, it will gobble that up pretty quick.

yay VMs indeed, that by far is my favorite invention of the 2ks! I use them everyday and honestly don't know how I'd get along without them.

as far as GUIs, I honestly have tried almost everyone out there and the most mature is Trixbox. I'm not a big fan of the company (fonality) that bought the open source project but so far they've been good about keeping it open. If you want a commercially supported asterisk install then check out SwitchVox... it is amazing and a GREAT product.

Yeah go GUI... unless you are doing some pretty crazy stuff you don't need to go digging into the configs. Also by staying in the GUI you allow yourself to be able to go on vacation and have others admin the box while you are away... (very easy to screen shot a browser and put it into a how-to) Sadly people get really scared when they have to read CLI...

anyhow, let me know how your tests go and let me know if I can be of any help.

I've done some pretty crazy things with asterisk and love seeing the excitement of others diving in!

cheers
-jb

[scottslyons]

This is the advantage of having a modern phone system because it can support even analog devices, like old telephones, through the use of ATA or other related adapters.