[GRLUG] Does anyone know PBX - Asterisk

[Michael Mol]

On Sat, Nov 22, 2008 at 11:46 AM, Bill Creswell <billcreswell at gmail.com> wrote:
> I am on the board of a non-profit, Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services, and we
> are moving to a new location.
> I am not particularly familiar with phone systems or requirements, but I
> have heard the costs may run into the tens of thousands of dollars, which we
> don't have.
> After reading this http://www.chayden.net/Asterisk/SeUpAsteriskAtHome.htm
> I began to wonder what might be necessary to setup a decent system.
> We do need voice for the receptionist, and a few employees, and the rest
> will be using Video Phones which, as I recall, just run off the internet
> service. So it would seem to me overkill, to spend large sums of money for a
> few extensions. Therefore, it is possible that a smaller PBX system run off
> Asterisk may do the trick.
> Does anyone know about this stuff?
> Is anyone willing to donate some time/knowledge, or discount some
> "professional" installation?
> Or even know a cheap way for a small non-profit to get phone service?
> Thanks,
> Bill

We set up Asterisk for the company I work at, and use wireless SIP
phones. (Of the two models we have, I wouldn't class either as "good")
 Asterisk was a pain to get set up right in the first place, but once
everything was configured and in place, we didn't really have to think
about it.

I wasn't part of the setup and configuration, so I can't give any
specific details or gotchas, but I know we had to make local
modifications to the code to get the web interface working properly,
and getting the gain levels set properly for the POTS interfaces took
some trial, error and searching for the configuration setting.

Incidentally, we're looking at reducing our POTS line count to cut
costs; Does anyone know of a reliable POTS-SIP gateway service
Asterisk can talk to?


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:wq