[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk vs. Traditional PBX

[Nora Lavelle]

Hi everyone ! 

So here's my question of the day !  I need to make a decision on whether or not to go to a voip solution or configure an existing pbx (norstar) that my company has available.  We are a small startup. I'm wanting a solution that will support up to about 200 people, with direct dial-in capability, up to about 30 concurrent phone calls and good voice quality. Right now I have an asterisk deployment with about 15 people on it. We have sipura 841 phones. The biggest issue currently is voice quality. lot of complaints there.  I have a dell 650 poweredge (single processory system), with a digium tdm400 card and 4 analog lines plugged into it. 

So here are my questions: 

* Is asterisk a good solution for my company ? or should I just install the traditional pbx and look to move to asterisk in a couple of years ? (I personally would prefer asterisk cuz I'm a  unix person not a phone person so from a manageability perspective i would love this ) 

* If I were to go to an asterisk solution to support about 200 people with the requirements above what hardware platform would you recommend ?  I'm guessing I'd need a PRI line and a different digium card? Also would a 1cpu poweredge dell be enough ? or would that have to be upgraded too ?  

If anyone is running an environment similar to this that can provide help I would really appreciate this. I'm having a hard time making this decision and would love to hear anybody's experience in a real time environment. 

Thanks again this list ROCKS! 
Nora Lavelle


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