[Asterisk-Users] Connecting to Commander NT132

[Christopher Lee]

Hi Nick,

The Commander NT132 is essentially a rebadged Nortel Norstar MICS - I
believe with a slightly different firmware for Australian conditions. I
have the smaller version - Commander NT40 (which is a rebadged Norstar
CICS) connected up to Asterisk via the Norstar's built in Analog port.

You can get analog ports for the Commander NT132 if you don't have
any... I don't know how much they cost, but you can often find second
hand parts for these systems relatively easily.

Actually I wish I had a Commander NT132 for my setup as I ended up
tagging 3 analog adapters off the NT40 system (which take up digital
extension ports) and still need more analog ports. The external ATA's
are so bulky and awkard, at least with the NT132 you can buy a proper
analog card - I belive they have about 8 ports or so to plug directly
into the system, great if you have a need for quite a few analog
extensions.

There was some good doco written up by David Gomillion on intergrating
the Norstar MICS with Asterisk, but it's based on using PRI (Primary
Rate Interface) cards.

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Asterisk+Interop+Nortel+Norstar+MICS

Integration with analog FXS port (on the NT40 anyway) is relatively
straightforward - but a big downside of these smaller Nortel systems is
they don't offer up any disconnect supervision on the FXS ports (and in
my case I also have a 4port FXO trunk card in the system which also
lacks disconnect supervision). 

This means when someone calls from the NT40 into my asterisk system
(through a X101P card), if they hangup first the X101P doesn't get any
signal that the line has hungup. It was pretty annoying to start with,
but through ensuring my dialplans all correctly hangup the line from my
end when they're supposed to, and watching for silence in voicemails,
then much of the trouble is solved and I find it works quite well for
what I need.

Another problem with integrating via analog is that you don't receive
any CallerID info from the NT40... So if someone calls from the NT40 and
I miss the call, I have to do a bit of guesswork to figure out which
extension to try calling back to find the person who was looking for me.

As for integrating via ISDN with a Fritz card, I'm not sure, someone
else might be able to answer that better... I asked about this quite
some time ago about interfacing the NT40 via BRI - I believe you need a
card with a HFC chipset like this one -

http://www.junghanns.net/asterisk/page17.html

My previous question - "Norstar Integration with Asterisk via FXO or BRI
ISDN"
http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2004-February/035729.ht
ml

It's not cheap, and hence why I haven't really pursued integration of my
system via ISDN... from what I've read it seems PRI really is the best
way to integrate, which is a downside if you only have BRI interfaces &
lines.

Hope this helps some... The most important thing to know is that what
you have is a Nortel Norstar MICS system, which makes searching for
information much easier as they are very common systems in the states.

Regards,
Chris Lee

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com 
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of 
> Nick Cobley
> Sent: Friday, 22 October 2004 3:52 PM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Connecting to Commander NT132
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I am looking at connecting Asterisk upto a Commander NT132. I 
> need 2 lines, and initially was going to connect it up to 
> some analog ports, which I have since discovered they don't have.
> 
> So I am taking another look at other options rather than 
> getting a couple single line cards.
> 
> Now firstly, would I be able to install something like a 
> Fritz ISDN card and hook that upto the PABX? I know this can 
> be done with say an
> E1 card but was not sure if the same applies with an ISDN 
> card connecting to the PABX rather than the carrier.
> 
> If someone could perhaps summarise my options I would appreciate it.
> We will be installing a number of systems in exactly the same 
> configuration, so I need to try and understand these areas a 
> little more.
> 
> BTW I am in Australia if that makes a difference.
> 
> Kind regards
> Nick
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