[Asterisk-Users] Qs about FXO/FXS cards

[Brian Capouch]

Greg - Cirelle Enterprises wrote:

> When you try to sell the asterisk system, you have to compete with that and
> frankly, all the people want is to make phone calls.
> 
> Mention voice over ip and eyebrows raise, "I've heard of that", but in reality
> nobody cares how their phone calls are made, just that it goes through.
> 
> If you can't save them a bunch of money, there is little or no reason to diverge
> to a more costly system, that will "save in the long run", regardless of the
> additional feature set, which if they can't touch it, feel it taste it,
> smell it, smoke it, makes no difference at all. 

Yeppers.

Then in six months or a year, or whatever timeframe (these things are 
expected to provide many years of use by those who consider their price 
expensive) they will ask you, "How do I use one of these newfangled 
ITSPs with our system?"

"Why do I have to still have to use an answering machine?"

"Why am I paying $7/line for CallerID?"

"Can I set this thing up to automatically forward to my cell phone when 
I'm not in the office?"

"Can we have an autoattendant like everyone else does now?"

"Why do I still have to pay for conferencing?"

"Can I set things up so that all the sales phones ring at the same time 
until someone picks one up?

Etc. etc.

I fielded questions like these from a businessman the other day who 
loudly bemoaned having invested some fairly hefty cash (in small 
business terms) on a Nortel key system, THREE YEARS AGO.

Imagine what he would have sounded like had he cut that check last month 
instead.

Maybe these talkswitches are smart and can do a lot of those things.  I 
don't know anything about them.  I do think the play that VoIP is 
getting, pretty much all over the place, in the "mainstream" and 
"business" media, will soon result in the average businessperson knowing 
much more about it than is presently known.

At that point some of the economy mentioned in your email is going to 
seem misguided, IMO.

B.