[asterisk-users] Looking at Asterisk for 8000sq/ft residential

[Joe Greco]

> Rick Huebner wrote:
> > My brother-in-law is finishing up his McMansion and I've done all of the
> > low voltage wiring and am starting the trimout.  We are batting around
> > what to do for a phone system and I'm torn between a Panasonic
> > TAW824/TVA50 and using an Asterisk implementation.  I'm very strong on
> > the networking/linux/basic hacking(old school, not criminal) side.  I've
> > downloaded the Asterisk VM and have some implentation questions before
> > we make a decision.  Of course we are running out of time because I need
> > to order either RJ-11 or RJ-45 keystones for the plates to finish the
> > trim out. 
>
> You can use the 8 position modular jacks regardless ( misnamed RJ-45 ) 
> so that should not stop you from finishing the trim out.

Replacing the jacks down the road is (yawn).  Big deal if you need to.
Pick whatever works for the current deployment.  You WILL be running at
least Cat5e to the jacks, every jack, right?  That's the problematic
bit for the future - not the jack itself.  You don't want to plug RJ11
into RJ45 jacks, so plan to make it work out somehow.  You can always
make RJ11/45 cables so RJ45 is my preference.

> The Panasonic systems I have used over the last 20 years are rugged, 
> hang on the wall, connect with proper protection and forget them for 
> years on end. They all have had dual ports that will either use a POTS 
> single line phone, or one of their multibutton phones without any 
> rewiring, reprogramming, and many even support one of each per port.
> An ideal system for a large house.

I will second that the Panasonic systems are nice.  They're everything
you would expect in a proprietary phone system and you are not likely
to be disappointed in the system as long as it offers the features you
want.

That said, you are forever locked into that system.  I can't say I've
looked much into the Panasonics since we went Asterisk here, but at the
time there was a definite feeling of it being "last decade's" technology,
and that was the better part of a decade ago.

Features will "just work."  But the features you don't have, you will
never have, at least not without a lot of hacking.

Asterisk is forward-looking.  Expect things not to work without some
programming and configuration.  Consider something simple like VoIP.
With Asterisk, easy to use VoIP on either or both sides.  I wouldn't
have guessed years ago that one day my cell phone would double as a
SIP extension.  Yet it happened and it works.

And look at where telephony is going.  It's going to be VoIP, sooner
or later.  All that copper's going away.  Get network-centric now and
maybe you won't get stuck with a dinosaur.  It's a tradeoff.  Asterisk
can be more work.  But you can do more too.  Our Asterisk announces
calls by name over the intercom and lights it up on the TV's as well.
Easy to do with a programmable box.

> Although many will disagree, for most users Panasonic systems with 
> normal requirements  work well for long periods with no problems and 
> have lots of features.
> For the geek who wants to play, drive the rest of the family nuts 
> changing things, then consider Asterisk.

There's nothing saying you have to change things constantly with 
Asterisk.  Some of us have systems that are generally untouched for
long periods of time.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.