[Asterisk-Users] Systems Admin; Telecom Newbie - What do I need?

Tue Jul 12 22:33:48 MST 2005

you could also use the existing phone lines from your
Comdial. That way you don't need any new phone lines
or a VOIP provider. What do you have connected to it
now?

--- Roland Zagler <r.zagler at fog.at> wrote:

> Hi Newbie,
> 
> I wonder how you could find the mailing list but NOT
> the wiki
> at
>
http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=Asterisk,
> that
> documents a huge area of how to use Asterisk in many
> scenarios.
> 
> First of all, take a week or two to read the wiki
> and to set up
> a testing environment and try to get basic things
> running with
> Asterisk (which means os, Asterisk installation and
> basic calls
> between softphones...) to get knowledge of what
> Asterisk can
> do.
> 
> i suggest you use debian because i think there are
> more people
> using debain than using os x and maybe you will need
> some
> help ;-)
> 
> then try to get a BRI line (Basic Rate Interface,
> also known as ISDN),
> put a BRI interface card like Longshine LCS-8051a,
> which has a
> HFC chipset on it that enables you to use the ZAPTEL
> functionality.
>
(http://www.voip-info.org/tiki-index.php?page=zaptelBRI)
> 
> and then, read the wiki...
> 
> reguarding the costs for the testing:
> 1 PC: around USD 500,-
> 1 BRI interface: around USD 40,-
> 
> after testing you will have to deside what to do:
> 
> - take the T1 out of the cisco and put it into your
> Asterisk Server
>   in a PRI interface (that acts like the BRI but has
> 23 channels and
>   not 2)
> - route your traffic to your cisco and let him to
> the translation to
>   PSTN
> 
> i would prefer the first choice, i am currenty
> running several
> HP ProLiant DL360 Servers with Fedora Core 3 Linux
> with Digium's
> quad PRI cards TE410P with 4 E1s (30 voice channels
> each). These
> servers are single Xeon 2.8 GHz with 2GB of RAM
> which is more than
> enough. in austria each of these servers is aroung
> USD 2400,- and
> the Digium PRI card is around USD 1600,-.
> 
> reguarding your network: at worst case you will need
> 64kbit of
> bandwidth so you can run your voice infrastructure
> using your
> network easily without buying expensive switches
> from cisco
> that are "VoIP capable".
> 
> this and everything else can be found by
> experiencing the search
> button on the wiki-site...
> 
> best regards,
> roland
> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
> [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On
> Behalf Of Ed Pastore
> Sent: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 11:33 PM
> To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Systems Admin; Telecom
> Newbie - What do I
> need?
> 
> Hi, folks. I am planning on implementing Asterisk in
> 2006, and need  
> to budget for it now, so I need to know what I'll
> need to get. My  
> company has about 50 users, and is currently
> languishing on a very  
> old Comdial PBX. All of our client computers are
> Macs; our servers  
> are mostly OS X, with a couple Debians and a Red
> Hat.
> 
> I am thoroughly experienced at systems
> administration, and can figure  
> out most everything I need on the computer hardware
> and software  
> side, but I am a complete telecom newbie and get
> lost when trying to  
> figure out what else I will need.
> 
> Here's what I think I need:
> - A server, running Debian Linux or OS X (our
> preferred operating  
> systems here)
> - A good network. We're on switched 100 Base-T, but
> will move to  
> gigabit next year.
> - A T1 or some dedicated channels of a T1
> - Gateway PCI cards or devices (in the case of OS X,
> only devices I  
> guess)
> - VOIP phones or phone software (I'd like to use
> software and USB  
> handsets)
> 
> Here's what I don't get:
> 
> 1. How do I route between the internet and the telco
> network? (I said  
> I was a telecom newbie, right?) I mean, if someone
> dials a phone  
> number, what tells it to route to my gateway device?
> Do I need  
> service from a telecom company? I need to get the
> phone numbers from  
> somewhere, right?
> 
> 2. Does my network need to be VOIP capable? I see
> some network  
> switches which route additional layers of ethernet,
> including in some  
> cases VOIP. Do I really need that? Or will any
> gigabit switches do  
> the trick? If so, what's up with those VOIP
> switches? Is that just  
> marketing? They sure cost a lot more.
> 
> 3. What do I need in a T1? I currently have one T1
> from Sprint, going  
> into a Cisco router, which then goes to my firewall,
> then to my  
> network. If I want, say 30 channels of another T1
> for VOIP... can I  
> just buy another Sprint T1? And where does
> additional hardware fit  
> into that route in order to split out the VOIP
> channels from the data  
> channels?
> 
> 4. Do I pretty much need a vendor for implementation
> help, if this is  
> all new to me? Or is there a path I can follow that
> will help me get  
> through this?
> 
> 5. What am I not asking that I should be? :)
> 
> Any help, input, suggestions, etc. would be welcome.
> (But please no  
> vendor calls yet... I'm in early budgeting, and will
> just ignore  
> vendor input until I know more.)
> 
> Thanks!
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