[Asterisk-Users] Help please

[Steven Critchfield]

On Wed, 2003-11-19 at 10:52, Michael Welter wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> My PBX/key system failed when building power was switched off and then 
> back on.  The service rep says the PBX unit is so old that it is not 
> repairable.
> 
> The unit has 8 incoming POTS lines and 12 multiline sets.  There are 
> voice mailboxes on each line.
> 
> Switching to Qwest's Centrex system would cost about $3800/yr.  My 8 
> business lines now cost $3320/yr, so the Centrex increment would be 
> about $480/yr.
> 
> Purchasing a new PBX would run anywhere from $4K to $9K.
> 
> My questions are:  should I be considering Asterisk?  What type of 
> telephone set could I use with Asterisk?  Would I be able to conference 
> outside parties into a call?  Would I have voice mail?

Sorry for the last empty message, don't know if I was able to delete it
from my outbox quick enough.

Anyways, we discussed pricing recently. Your price for lines is pretty
nice. You probably couldn't justify the extra cost of switching to T1 or
PRI as the loop itself would cost a little more than you currently are
paying. 

So now you have to figure out how to deal with these lines. You will
have to decide whether or not you want IP phones, or analog phones.
Either way, you probably are looking at a channel bank and a T1 card to
get the 8 lines into a single asterisk machine.

8x12 would fit on a Zhone, but you have to know that the zhone doesn't
pass callerid on the FXO ports. You could go with just about any modular
channel bank that supports FXO ports. Look at the Adtrans or Adit lines.

So for an analog system you are looking at
$500 PC
$500 T100P card
$500 or so for a channel bank of of ebay.
$30x12 for phones.

or approximately $1860 if you get lucky on ebay.

On a purely money view point, if you don't for see growth in the number
of lines into your office, you won't see the break even of asterisk for
about 4 years over the Centrex lines. Of course you can assign value to
having your own machine in house, and the VoIP possibilities, and you
can claim break even in a shorter term.

Don't take this as downing asterisk, I love it. I just wanted to cut to
the dollars since you have placed them on the table.
-- 
Steven Critchfield  <critch at basesys.com>