[asterisk-biz] VOIP infastructure (re-post with subject)

[Stefan Glaus]

Hello,

I have a few questions regarding  VOIP infastructure and I'm wondering
if anyone would be kind enough to answer a couple of them for me...

I have set up asterisk and it works beautifully. We're on a T1 line
and I've purchased some termination minutes with a couple different
termination providers and I'm shopping around for DID and origination
providers.

What I'm wondering is this:

Is it worthwhile to do your own termination? I don't think we'll be
reselling service anytime in the near future - what I'm setting up is
for my companie's use only. Can we 'split' up our t1 line to either
offer a  set amount of pstn terminations or - better yet - dynamically
allocate channels based on usage? If you're switching the packets to
the pstn yourself, do you then have to pay long distance fees?

What about DID's and origination? Does one simply purchase a block of
numbers and somehow point those numbers to channels on your t1? I'm
not quite clear as to how the 'infastructure' works I guess. I'm
assuming you have to purchase the numbers from somewhere - do you then
use your own bandwidth as opposed to paying by the minute for inbound
calls?

I'd very much appreciate some advice on this or a resource that might
answer some of these questions. I've searched high and low but can't
seem to find any documentation on how one would go about setting up
the infastructure or whether it's even worthwhile to do so. I'm sorry
if some of these questions are way off base I'm kind of groping in the
dark here.

Thanks a lot!