[Asterisk-Users] New. Testing?

[sjudkins at christyind.com]

Hello all. I am new to the list and after doing some research on 
"Asterisk" this
week I would like to get started testing.

I am a 15 year "Unix" veteran and "Open Source User". I was wondering
what you guys would suggest I use to start testing with regards to the 
Telephone
Interface?

I am the IT Manager for a firm that is moving next year. I have decided to 
go with
VoIP for our new Phone System. After discovering Asterisk last week, I 
have
decided to "test" it and get some practical experience using the software.

I currently have an unused ISDN (BRI) line that I was thinking about 
cancelling until I
learned of Asterisk. I thought about buying one of the BRI PCI cards 
(listed on
the Digium website) to use in a test server. Although, I see that they can 
be rather
expensive for something that I most likely will have to just "throw away" 
when we
move (I assume we will have a T1 or fractional T1 in the new building.). 
My question
is, "What would you guys recommend I use to get started testing/looking at 
this
software?" I only see these two ("affordable") options for testing:

Buy an ISDN BRI interface board, use it and test it then "throw it away".
     (This option wouldl give me two lines to test with, which would be 
nice.)
Buy an analog board and use a dedicated line.
  (I think we only have one incoming line that I could use for testing. 
OR, could I
   use the two POTS ports from our ISDN router and in effect just use the 
two
   ISDN data lines as POTS lines?0


Thanks to all!
Shayne
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20041022/427201eb/attachment.htm