[asterisk-users] SIP vs Analog lines

[Gordon Henderson]

On Tue, 28 Jul 2009, John F. Ervin wrote:

> Never having actually rolled an Asterisk (Trixbox in my case) system 
> into production.  I was wondering if in most peoples opinion if given 
> the choice would rather have a straight VOIP/SIP system or would rather 
> have a system with normal POTS/analog types lines and something like a 
> digium card?  As far as reliability etc.  Thoughts?

A lot may well depend on where you are in the world, how reliable the 
local PSTN is vs. the local broadband - or leased line service. There will 
be a cost trade-off too - VoIP over broadband generally being cheaper than 
installing multiple POTS/ISDN2/ISDN30 connections, but for a slightly 
lower guarantee of service.

Here in the UK we have a generally excellent wholesale (ADSL) broadband 
system, let-down at times by the back-end ISPs who buy into it, so picking 
a good back-end ISP is worth it.

And how many channels or concurrent calls are you looking at?

So too many variables to give a definate answer, but personally I'm 
installing more and more pure VoIP systems these days. Even when the 
client wants/needs to keep their legacy PSTN, we use the PSTN for inbound 
and VoIP for outbound calls.

Gordon