[asterisk-users] Newbie Questions . . .

[Jason Flatt]

Hello all.

My company currently has an older Executone PBX system that we are outgrowing.  
Rather than wait until the last minute to make a hasty decision, I thought it 
would be a good idea to do some research and compare options first.  My 
expertise is in computers and networking, and telephony systems are mostly 
foreign to me.

What we currently have are 5 incoming POTS lines and 25 stations and are 
wanting to add 1 or 2 more stations.  I think we might have added at least 
one more incoming line, except that the phones we have only support 5 lines 
(so I'm told).  Our PBX system has room for 5 more stations, then it's time 
to buy a new one.

I'm assuming I need to add some hardware in order to make Asterisk work with 
our existing setup, but I'm not entirely sure what.  Based on the reading 
I've done so far and my limited understanding, if we wanted to use it in 
place of our existing PBX system, I would need to get an "analog interface 
card" (several, actually), like Digium's TDM400P, like so:

2 - Wildcard TDM04B cards for FXO and
7 - Wildcard TDM40B cards for FXS

-or-

1 - Wildcard TDM04B card for FXO and
1 - Wildcard TDM22B card for FXO & FXS and
7 - Wildcard TDM40B cards for FXS

I might as well use the top configuration for future expansion.

If I am correct, that is 9 PCI cards in a PC.  I don't know of any motherboard 
that supports that many cards, so either I'm wrong, or I'll need different 
cards, or I'll need to utilize 2 or more PCs in conjunction with each other.  
I haven't yet found any mention on the last two options, so I'm assuming I'm 
wrong and I need a little enlightenment.

Thank you for any information that will help me better understand this.


-- 
Jason Flatt
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9; Angela; Harry, 5; and William, 12:04 am, 12-29-2005)
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