[Asterisk-Users] New office hardware set up question.

[Shawn Parker]

Pardon the newb question and all, but this is my first real experience 
with phone systems, let alone VoIP and Asterisk.

I'm building an office space for a former employer and we are 
considering Asterisk as the phone system there.  But, I've never set up 
an Asterisk system before so I've got a couple of questions about the 
required hardware.

The network architecture is pretty simple, we have an incoming T1 (into 
an adtran box).  There is a 24-Port switch and a 24-Port patch panel for 
the network.  The office needs 10 phones and they have 5 workstations.  
I was looking at building a server with a WCT100P card and using 
Asterisk on it, and using Cisco 7905G IP phones.  Now, my question is 
this, do I need anything else for this set up to work?  The IP phones 
plug into the lan like everything else, each has it's own IP address and 
appears on the network.  If I run a T1 line into the T100P card how does 
incoming and outgoing calls work?  The T1 can be broken up into as many 
voice/data channels as needed, and the company has existing phone and 
fax numbers.

I'm a network guy, not a phone guy.  Is there any other piece of 
hardware I need between the PBX and the T1?  Or anything else I'm 
leaving out that makes the phones work with Asterisk?

-- 
Shawn Parker
Network Administrator
Cumulus Broadcasting, LLC.
Columbia-Jefferson City, Missouri
1.573.449.4141
shawn.parker at cumulus.com