[Asterisk-Users] Hardware Compatibility Question

[Wolf N. Paul]

Hello,

I am in the planning stages of building an Asterisk PBX for an English-langage K-12 school
in Vienna, Austria, and have a few questions on hardware.

We have an E1/PRI phone company connection, and need to support about 100 analog POTS 
extensions, while also implementing VoIP for calls to the US and the UK.

We also have a second E1 for Internet connectivity, terminating in a Cisco router.

It seems to me that the best thing would be to get a single-port Digium E1 card for
the phone company link, and either a 4-port E1 or 4-port T1 card with corresponding
24-port channel banks for the analog extensions.

Here is my question:  can someone recommend specific brands/models of channel banks
to use for this and can someone recommend reliable sources for USED channelbanks which
will work in this scenario?

Alternatively, is there another, better, cheaper way of accomplishing this?

Is anyone aware of companies which will give special deals to non-profit educational
institutions?

Are there any "operator console" GUIs available for Asterisk?

Finally, is there anyone in Germany or Austria or some other nearby country
(Central Europe) who has implemented an Asterisk installation of this scope and would
be willing to have me visit and pick his/her brain?

Thank you,

Wolf Paul