[Asterisk-Users] Is Asterisk ready for "real" use?

[Mike Ciholas]

Okay,

I am facing a move in two months to newly renovated space.  I 
have to decide *this week* between:

A) Pull LAN and phone cables, prepare to move and expand our
"traditional" PBX (Panasonic KX-TD1232 and VPS200).

or

B) Pull only LAN cables, go VoIP, use Asterisk as PBX.

It is *not* an option to purchase a VoIP system package from
Cisco, 3com, etc.  Installers are getting an enormous premium for
this now (rough estimate, 20 extensions $40K (!)).

I am "this close" to committing to a solution based on Asterisk 
PBX, PoE LAN switches, and VoIP phones.  I am absolutely sure it 
is the right *long term* solution, but I don't know if it is 
"ready" for reliable daily usage.

I've literally read the last year's worth of posts to 
asterisk-users to get a "feel" for the situation.  Since you 
don't see posts of the form "installed it, just working, no 
problems" very often, you could get the opinion that everyone has 
problems since that is what the mailing list is for.

So, I would like to hear from those out there that have a system 
as I've described above and tell me if I'm insane to commit this 
direction or whether it makes sense.

For those of you who have done it, how much time did it take you 
to get the system running smoothly?

PS: In case it matters, we're extremely Linux capable (we use it
for our file serving, networking, and we built our own custom ERP
on perl and mySQL, we also do embedded Linux in custom military
robot controllers).

-- 
Mike Ciholas                            (812) 476-2721 voice
CIHOLAS Enterprises                     (812) 476-2881 fax
2626 Kotter Ave, Unit D                 mikec at ciholas.com
Evansville, IN 47715                    http://www.ciholas.com