[Asterisk-Users] Re: Newbie Questions

[David Cook]

>I'm going to be helping to set * up for the company I work for, and in
>doing all my research about it, have found it to be a very viable
>solution for my SOHO side business at home. I do however have a few
>questions, forgive me if they're stupid but I'm new to all of this.

OK. I'll bite.

>1. I want to be able to handle 3 analogue phone lines, with a regular
>bell telephone line coming into the house.
In "phone lingo" the phone sets are the "station" side of the PBX. The
lines coming into the house are the "trunk" side. Sometimes, but not
often, the station side is called "line-side" but usually to referrence
interconnecting tie lines.

>three FXS ports and one FXO port?
Correct.

>can I 'chain' my phones together from the one FXS port ...
Yes, but they will all be the same extension just like all the phones in
your house and not be individually addressable (dialable).

> upgrade to VOIP capabilities for my SOHO Long Distance, is this as 
>simple as getting another card with a T1 interface ...
No. A T1 interface that goes directly into the PBX (Asterisk) is usually
for voice (23B+D (23 bearer channels for voice + one data channel for
signalling)). You will most likely already have a 100BT connection on
your server and that is where you will get the most cost effective
in/out IP connectivity to your box. You will then connect your network
- or that segment of your network - to the outside IP world either
directly or via firewalls/routers.


>Does * support 'ring tone identification' ?
Yes.

> Relating back to the splitting of the phone lines,...
See above.

Matt, you really need to spend _a_lot_ of time reading the documentation
and playing with the system. There is no substitute for hands-on
experience. I have had a long history in data and telephony and I still
played with the product for 4 months before I asked a question. Until
you spend that amount of time learning you will not have the background
to understand the answers that people give you. Most people on the list
won't answer a question like this one because it has been well shown
that they are wasting their time teaching someone who is not ready for
it yet. The other side of the coin is that the people on this list that
have spend copious months of their time gaining expertise are perfectly
willing to support peers who have the invested in the same manner. They
are not however, willing to spoon feed people who have not yet, or
appear unwilling to make that investment themselves. Those people need
to hire consultants.

If you do want to hire a consultant - which there is nothing wrong with
do so - just ask for such on the list and there will be manny people
willing to provide rates for their services.

I know that email is a cold medium and this may come across badly at
first, but that does in fact represent the culture of a user community.
You need to read up first to gain a minimum level of expertise
_as_a_user_ in order to productively take part in the user community.

>Hopefully I'm clear on my questions,
>Thanks a lot in advance.
>Matt Gibson
>Unix Administrator
>Experthost / NJ Tech Solutions
--
David Cook