[asterisk-users] Advice on ISDN and Asterisk in the UK

[Gordon Henderson]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2008, Alan Lord wrote:

> Phil Knighton wrote:
>> Hello all
>>
>> What I'm looking for is some plain speaking advice on ISDN.
>>
>> Currently using 4 analog lines connecting via a four port TDM400P FXO
>> card.  We need to physically move our installations, and on requesting
>> the analog lines be moved - our telco (BT) is suggesting we replace our
>> analog lines with ISDN2.  We would have 3 x ISDN2 connections, giving us
>> six voice channels.  They've even offered us free installation of the
>> lines (as opposed to a £560 charge for moving the analog lines!)
>
> Wow, you are lucky.
>
> I used to have an ISDN-2 line into my home office. BT wrote to me about
> 2 years ago and said they were discontinuing the service. They converted
> my dual channel BRI back into a single POTS.

Sure it was ISDN2e and not Home or Business Highway? They killed off an 
the HH and BG lines some time back and converted them back to POTS. I've 
no idea why - I'd cancelled my HH line some time before the cut-off date.

> I built a little Asterisk server, stuck an X100p in it for backup calls
> should my broadband go down (on a separate POTS line) and got two
> non-geo 0844 IAX trunks for free instead.
>
> Who lost out there then?

Well, quite. BT have their good points, but also their stupidly bad points 
too.

They phone me up once a month at present and ask me why I'm not placing 
any outgoing calls with them. When I try to tell them why, (because I run 
my own phone company!) because my reply is not in the script, they just 
hang up on me.

Gordon