[asterisk-users] Hardware that can ring my phone?

[James FitzGibbon]

On 8/1/07, Linux Lover <linuxlover992000 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> But one thing that I forgot to mention is that my
> business is only in its beginning stage and I need to
> be as thrifty as possible. While $216 is a reasonable
> price, I was wondering whether my (currently very
> modest) goal can be achieved by spending much less
> (under $100). For example, what if I buy one of those
> el-cheapo PBX boxes and connect it to an Asterisk
> server?
>
> http://www.soho-pbx.com/sp-104.htm
>
> Do you think this could work for me or did I expose a
> gross misconception on my part?


This SOHO PBX box won't interop with Asterisk because it doesn't speak any
of the protocols that Asterisk does.  This box appears to be a solid-state
(and I'd assume very feature restricted) alternative to Asterisk.  That it
happens to have both FXO (to the Telco) and FXS (to the analog phone) ports
doesn't mean that it is usable as an analog interface for Asterisk.

Your best bet is to find your closest Asterisk user's group and see when
they're next doing a build seminar.  Most user groups do these a few times a
year and you might be able to find someone who will do one on demand.  You
bring some cheapo PC you might have lying around and buy a $20 FXO card and
build a simple answering machine using Asterisk. From there, it's easy to
extend so that when the user chooses a particular option in your IVR, the
call is bridged to a phone in your office.

The original single-FXO-port card from Digium was the X100P.  These aren't
sold anymore (the TDM400B modular card replaced it), but they can be found
on eBay for $10-$30.  If you can get your hands on one, you might consider
going with a cheap SIP phone instead of a analog phone for your business.
There isn't (as far as I know) a readily available cheap single-FXS-port
card.  If you go with an analog phone behind Asterisk, you'll need an FXS
port.  If you go with a SIP phone, you just need to have a network
connection from the phone to the server, which might be cheaper.  A quick
search on eBay shows a few Grandstream Budgetone 101 phones (certainly not
the best available, but they'll do the job) in the sub-$50 range.

-- 
j.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20070801/9448399b/attachment.htm