[Asterisk-Users] VOIP phonesets vs. cheap Analog touch-tone sets with Asterisk

[Steven Critchfield]

On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 18:56, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
> > With an analog phone deployment, anything beyond four desksets is best
> > accomplished with T1 card(s) in the Asterisk PC and channel banks to
> > connect the phones (and probably the PSTN).  Whereas the phones could be
> > as little as $10 each, you have to budget the price of the channel
> > bank(s).  If the customer is uncomfortable with eBay, used hardware,
> > channel banks could be north of $3000 each.
> 
> I'm not sure what crack you're smoking; 24-port FXS channel banks (Adit 
> 600s) are about US$400 on ebay, each.  FXOs are more expensive, but that's 
> not what you need here.  And you can probably locate higher-density ones 
> should you require it.

Please reread what is in that first paragraph. Then I think you may wish
to issue a retraction for that crack smoking comment. If you notice,
Howard says "if your customer is uncomfortable with eBay". This means if
you can't sell a piece of eBay equipment to your customer, than you may
have to budget $3k or more to purchase one from a equipment vendor.
Howard is a good, and trustworthy business person who would be upfront
with his customers about the sourcing of some parts that may not then
have a warranty. 

BTW, I do not work for Howard, nor do I have a business relation with
Howard. He is just my friend. 

> > With a net-phone deployment, channel banks are out but more and better
> > ethernet switches _may_ be chosen (specifically taking advantage of
> > QoS/ToS) or separate voice-IP networks installed alongside data-IP
> > networks.  For ten desksets, probably not but for eighty???
> 
> Also factor into the cost of additional (re-)wiring of the existing network.  
> It's doubtful you'd want to mix heavy voice and data networks together, and 
> you would also probably want power over ethernet on those phones to avoid a 
> mountain of wall warts.  I don't know about you but I think that being able 
> to use the existing copper plant for analog phones, buying channel banks 
> and ~$100 ADSI phones would give you a far more robust network... 
> 
> There are arguments for both sides, as you are pointing out.  :-)

Now you came back to earth and had relevant comments to add and fully
understood what was being put forth in the first place. 
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>