[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk, Small Business, and Teliax

[Rich Adamson]

Your assumptions are right on the mark. However, keep in mind that
regardless of how much effort you put into trying to figure out whether
teliax is up/down, there are always things that can happen that you can't
discover. For example, teliax (or any other itsp) might accept your outgoing
call and its not processed for whatever reason. Such occurances can only be
addressed if you provide your users with an alternative way to dial. Common
approaches would be to include something like: a) dial 9+digits for an pstn
call, b) dial 8+digits for teliax calls, and, c) all 1+digits calls are
automatically routed based on whatever you set up in the dialplan.

Using such an approach essentially has your users dialing whatever number 
they need to (c) under normal conditions, but should there be a problem, the 
user can still call outbound by directing their calls to (a) or (b).

Your thought process also addresses 911 calls, etc, by you programming your
dialplan to route those calls via the pstn lines. No need to even think 
about routing 911 calls via teliax.

Keep in mind that whatever you do with fax'ing probably will not work through
voip and the TDM card. Lots of postings in the list archives if you need to
research that. (Since you are likely to have pstn lines, consider attaching
a fax machine to one of those lines and not let asterisk answer incoming calls
on that line. Or, subscribe to an external fax service and have them email 
pdf files instead of messing around with paper, toner, questionable fax 
machines, modems, etc.)

------------------------
> Thank you very much for your responses.  I like the idea of having Teliax as well as 
some PSTN lines in the event
> of the T1 going down.  I've just started to read the Asterisk book by O'Reilly, so my 
understanding of Asterisk is
> limited right now.  Consequently, if I get a TDM400P for the PSTN lines and get 
Teliax, can Asterisk be set up in
> such a way that if Teliax cannot be reached it uses the PSTN lines?  If yes, I'm 
assuming it has to do with the
> proper diaplan, which I'll be reading up on soon.
> 
> Thanks again for your help,
> 
> Andrew
> 
> On 12/10/05, Rich Adamson <radamson at routers.com> wrote:
> 
>     > I'm a beginner here and am interested in Teliax.  I own a small business and 
was
>     wondering if you guys could help
>     > me out here.  I'm basically looking for 6-8 telephone lines, but I notice that 
Teliax
>     supports 4 simultaneous calls on
>     > their Corporate plan.  So could I get two Corporate plans and set Asterisk to 
use
>     both of them and then have, in
>     > essence, 8 people talking at the same time?  If someone tries to call, would 
the
>     phone ring busy or would it still go
>     > through?
>     >
>     > I plan on having a T1.....
> 
>     I'd suggest you call their sales folks as teliax is rather flexible; they
>     will likely work something out for you that fits your needs.
> 
>     As others have mentioned, the bundled plans (eg, residential or corporate)
>     have a soft cap that essentially translates into $0.018 / minute, assuming
>     you use every single minute within the plan. If you don't use every minute,
>     the average cost/min goes up (1,000 minutes of corp plan use = $0.045 / min).
> 
>     So, you are probably better off with their "Pay as you go" plan which
>     ensures your cost is always $0.02 / min with an unlimited number of
>     simultanous calls.
> 
>     If you combine the above with some thought as to what you are going to do
>     when calls can't be completed via teliax (for whatever reason), then you
>     are likely to conclude that having two providers at some flat cost per
>     minute is a positive move.
> 
>     If you add to that thought process some probability that you can't complete
>     _any_ Internet-based calls (due to T1 failure or whatever), then you're
>     likely to approach a combination of itsp's and pstn lines for your business.
> 
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