[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk newbie questions

[Greg Hill]

On Sat, 11 Sep 2004, John Stegenga wrote:

> [sarcasm on]
> Thank you ALL for your warm welcome to this list.  I posted this message
> yesterday, and since I'm only getting Digest I figured I'd see a response in
> a day...
> [sarcasm off]
>
> C'mon.  This is the Asterisk Users mail list, isn't it?  This is where
> the Voip WIKI tells me to go for information on how people are using *.
> Even if you only point me in the direction of some other information, it
> would be great if I could hear SOMETHING from you guys and gals out
> there....I humbly seek YOUR wisdom.

One thing you'll learn quickly is that on this list, the subject line in
the headers is extremely important. People decide to read or delete entire
threads based on those few words, so make 'em count. Apparently the
subject line you picked didn't exactly entice us to read or reply..  :-)

> Reposted message:
>
> Hi everyone.
> I'm a bit of a Linux newbie, but I've been doing tech stuff for ages.
> I'm also brand new to *.
> I've been reading the Voip.org wiki, and perusing the list archives for a
> while since I've been asked to investigate using IP telephone / soft phones
> for a call-center type scenario.  People (marketing folks) have pointed me
> at Cisco, but I really don't wanna.  I'd rather be the hero and pull this
> off with a much smaller budget.
>
> Here is a scenario - 40 person call center, all with PC's (windows) and
> soft-phone.
> -any recommendations on hardware to run *?  soft phones?  90% of calls would
> be IP / IAX coming to the center.

I can't make any hardware recommendations (I use * at home on a P200) for
your application. As for soft phones, try a few and see how you like them.
See how your people respond to them. You're going to need to build at
least a small development system to evaluate and test before going live
with a full install.

> I read in the list archives about an ACD application / extension to * that
> would probably to what I need in that regard.
> - thoughts?

it's in there, but I haven't played with it.

> In remote locations I would also run *, and hook it up to an extension
> on an existing PBX.  Excuse the complete newbie question, but how many
> 'wires' do I need to bring between the PBX and the * box to support
> multiple simultaneous calls?  These calls would come from any extension
> on the TDM pbx to asterisk to the call center.  In a typical scenario
> there would NOT be a lot of simultaneous calls unless the system we're
> supporting went down hard.

quantity of wires depends on A) how many simultaneous calls do you want to
be able to carry and B) what's going to run on the wires. If you're going
to use an analog interconnect, then it's a 2 wires per call relationship.
If you're going to use a T1 link, then you could do 24 (or is it 23?) on
the 4-wire cable.  Find out what your PBX lets you do.

> How would / could? one configure * at the remote location to communicate
> with * at the call center?

IAX trunking?

> How would / could? one configure * at the remote location to use the
> existing TDM PBX as failover to call the support center via 1-800 if the
> IP circuit died?

Hmm. If I understood correctly, you have a PBX with its phones distributed
to each of your people's desks. They pick up their phone and dial a
number, and you want the PBX to use * as a gateway to transport the call
over IP to your support center. Correct? If the IP link is down, you want
calls to go directly from the PBX out onto PSTN, skipping *. You may be
able to set up * to reject the call if it can't route it out (IP down) and
configure the PBX dialplan to re-try the call on a PSTN route. You could
also let the PBX be ignorant of the situation, and write your dialplan on
* so that when a call can't be routed through the IP link it is
transferred back to the PBX to dial out the PSTN link. This latter setup
could require 2 channels between * and PBX for every actual call in
progress when the IP link is down.

Greg