[Asterisk-Users] VOIP phonesets vs. cheap Analog touch-tone sets with Asterisk

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

> With an analog phone deployment, anything beyond four desksets is best
> accomplished with T1 card(s) in the Asterisk PC and channel banks to
> connect the phones (and probably the PSTN).  Whereas the phones could be
> as little as $10 each, you have to budget the price of the channel
> bank(s).  If the customer is uncomfortable with eBay, used hardware,
> channel banks could be north of $3000 each.

I'm not sure what crack you're smoking; 24-port FXS channel banks (Adit 
600s) are about US$400 on ebay, each.  FXOs are more expensive, but that's 
not what you need here.  And you can probably locate higher-density ones 
should you require it.

> With a net-phone deployment, channel banks are out but more and better
> ethernet switches _may_ be chosen (specifically taking advantage of
> QoS/ToS) or separate voice-IP networks installed alongside data-IP
> networks.  For ten desksets, probably not but for eighty???

Also factor into the cost of additional (re-)wiring of the existing network.  
It's doubtful you'd want to mix heavy voice and data networks together, and 
you would also probably want power over ethernet on those phones to avoid a 
mountain of wall warts.  I don't know about you but I think that being able 
to use the existing copper plant for analog phones, buying channel banks 
and ~$100 ADSI phones would give you a far more robust network... 

There are arguments for both sides, as you are pointing out.  :-)

Regards,
Andrew