[Asterisk-Users] FXO cards

[Steven Critchfield]

On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 13:02, Michael Rowley wrote:
> Hey,
> 
> Here is a quesion for you.  I am still battling with the phone system 
> for my new buisiness.
> 
> 6 incoming lines, 1 fax, DSL.  8 phones max, will provably start with 5 
> to save money.
> 
> I was thinking of using Asterisk, but having difficulty finding 
> appropriate buisiness phones.  The Mitel 5055 is the best one I have 
> found, but the price seems to be about 400$ per phone.  $2K, plus a 
> 500$ server, then how to get the 6 B1(pots) lines into it.

Over priced phones for what you will end up using them for.

> I had thought of using a channel bank, but what a pain in the ass that 
> is becoming.  For one, they are expensive, and I then have to buy the 
> T1 card for the phone server.  I though, why not go with an FXO card.  
> I wish there was an X400P card with 4 ports on it, but, que sera.  I 
> can get them for 100$ apiece, or $50 for the knock offs on ebay, but 
> that means 6 pci slots.  Not easy, I could use one of the pci extender 
> boxes, but now I am worried about conflicts.  Or dialogic analog 4 or 
> 12 port cards for about 1500 to 1800$.  :(  This is getting expensive.  
> Part of the idea was to save some money.  The other part was to use 
> open software as much as possible, and support the FOSS community where 
> ever possible.
> 
> Here comes the question, wait for it :)
> 
> Has anyone had success with the dialogic 4 port cards, running 2 of 
> them in a server with * in a buisiness environment as stated above.

Don't bother with the dialogic boards. As you state, they are way
expensive. Maybe you should go back and rethink the channel bank way of
doing it. 

> I am begining to think that I may be better off just going with a 
> proprietary system and cough up the 6K and get it over with.   There 
> are a couple of solutions that will share the cat5 cable, that's 
> something.

An attitude like that, you might need to. 

You have stumbled into a need that isn't well supported because you are
stuck at a level where the higher density cards a more expensive than
you want to spend, yet still cheaper than the alternatives. 

> Any ideas?  Suggestions?  Does anyone know of a solution provider out 
> there who will be able to set this up for me for the 6K the phone 
> system is going to cost me anyway?

$500 - T100P card
$500 - decent PC
$800 - bad ebay day for a channel bank
$480 - 16 analog phones at $30 (att 957 with speakerphone)
------
$2280 + someones(maybe you) to do the labor.
You might want to budget almost $1k for a FXO card in case you can't
find one on ebay for the channel bank you get.

So even at $3280 and some labor, this beats your $6k. You can add on SIP
phones later when you are ready for it and do it one at a time. 

-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch at basesys.com>