[GRLUG] VOIP "Dialtone"

[Dan Pilcheck]

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 1:53 PM, John-Thomas Richards <jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 12:46:49PM -0400, Adam Erickson wrote:
> [snip]
>> In Febuary I picked up a service called Ooma Telo. I have no
>> complaints. $350 for the hardware and a minimal fee around $17 per
>> year for taxes. I use it for home and fax. Compaired to Verizon, ROI
>> is about 7 Months, and you can use your regular phones and port your
>> old numbers to it.
>>
>> It sells at Miejers and Best Buy - www.ooma.com.
>>
>> Asterisk may be the way to save if you need several lines.
>
> Anyone here have any real-world experience with Asterisk?  I need to
> setup a new office space this summer with at least a couple phone lines.
> Is Asterisk overkill for two or four lines?  I'm not a sysadmin.  Is it
> too much for a somewhat knowledgeable end-user?
> --
> john-thomas
> ------

I currently maintain 2 Asterisk servers in production and 1 for-fun at home.
If you can program (and I dont), you can configure Asterisk. Don't get me
wrong, its not easy and I'm certainly no pro. but your project is more than
suitable for an asterisk box. If you are going analog, thats gonna require a
little hardware, but you could get a SIP provider and never have to
touch a line.
There are about 60 Polycom 301 & 501's around the office, with a few dozen
incoming copper lines over a T1. I only have 1 SIP line at the house,
with 4 local
and 2 remote phones (friend's house's). It a TON of fun personally, but I've
always had an addiction to telecommunications.

Go for it!



-- 
Who is to say that the next step in evolution is not a statistical
chance but rather a by-product of our own will?
That from here on out, nature stops deciding who survives and who
doesn't, but our own decisions?