[Asterisk-Users] Hardware for 20 extensions (voip vs analog)?

[Steve Maroney]

With analog phones the different features provided by asterisk are
not natevily supported. For example, on my 10 dollar analog phone, I have
to press the flash button and hear a dial tone to put the caller on hold.
Thats sort of confusing. Most users would think of the "Hold" button when
putting the caller on hold. And with IP Phones, thats excatly the way hold
works. Im sure all other analog phone will work the same way. I could be
wrong. Someone, please correct me. Also MWI is an issue too. I think not
only the phone, but the channel bank needs to support the same method of
MWI as well.

Emergency power is something to think about with IP Phones. I know that
traditional phone systems supply power to phones through the phone cable.
So a battery backup installed on the phone system will keep the all the
extensions up during power loss. With IP Phones, a POE hub would be used
with phones that support POE. Those POE hubs are expensive.


Hope this helps.

Thank you,
Steve Maroney

On Thu, 14 Oct 2004, Felix Pizarro wrote:

> Hi. I am evaluating the installation of ~ 20 extensions and 4 telco lines.  The customer asked me to compare costs and features of doing it all with voip phones or using analog phones.
>
> I think that the analog route would involve a T1 card, a channelbank (probably adit 600) and 20 new phones (probably aastra 9116).
>
> On the voip route, do I need something else in the asterisk box other than the ethernet card (and the 20 phones, probably cisco)? Of course I know I will need the TDM400 for the telco lines in both options.
>
> Is there anything I'm missing? This will be my first installation so any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
>
> What advantages do the voip route has, if any for this installation?
>
>
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