[Asterisk-Users] Digium T100P T1 Card

[Peter Svensson]

On Wed, 5 Jan 2005, Wiley Siler wrote:

> Telecom is complex but that does not mean that only a contractor can get
> it done.  If I had money to pay a contractor, I would probably have had
> money to buy a boxed PBX in the first place.  Cost effective has always
> been the greatest selling point to me regarding my * PBX.  Just enjoying
> the challenge and learning new things has been good too.  I have no
> question that I am capable of implementing this.  How long it will take
> and how hard are of course different questions.  That I have only myself
> as a resource is not.

The advantage of Asterisk is more of being extremely flexible than cheap. 
Most of the time for a very simple, bog standard pbx a boxed pbx is 
cheaper. Once you move into anything more complex Asterisk starts to make 
a ton of sense.

Since you seem interested in telephony it makes sense for you to set up 
your Asterisk pbx yourself. I don't think it will be cheaper, at least not 
in the immediate future. It will get you a pbx that is tailored to your 
needs in the end and that can be a huge plus.

Telephony in general and isdn and voip in particular is a lot more complex
than it looks at first. Things such as overlap dialing, handling all types
of releases etc, various analoge signaling forms etc. Getting a pbx that
can pass a call is not hard, but getting it to the point where it does
things right all the time requires you to invest a lot of time
understanding phone systems. As long as you are aware of it and like it,
great!

Peter