[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk vs. Traditional PBX

[Kerry Garrison]

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.

[Kerry Garrison sayeth] 
The 841 is fine for testing but I would never put one on a clients desk. The
sound quality is bottom of the barrel. Combine that with the TDM400 card and
its a wonder anyone will use the phone system at all. Move up to the Linksys
SPA941 or SPA942 or the Polycom 501 and then use a different interface such
as the Mediatrix 1204 or a PRI and your users will be singing your praises
till the end of time. 

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 )

[Kerry Garrison sayeth] 
Asterisk is a great solution for your company and you will have many more
benefits than the Northstar system. 
 
* 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 ? 

[Kerry Garrison sayeth] 
You would want a beefier machine and at least one PRI. Its not the number of
people, its the number of concurrent phone calls. I see businesses with 100
people and they average 5-7 concurrent calls and I have clients with 15
people that average 12-15 concurrent calls.  

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.

[Kerry Garrison sayeth] 
My largest install is approaching 55 users, with the PRI and Polycom 501's
they couldnt be happier. The system is on a nice 2.8ghz XEON system with 2gb
of RAM and at peak times the server is basically idle. 

Thanks again this list ROCKS!
Nora Lavelle



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20060209/894d436f/attachment.htm