[Asterisk-Users] newbie questions

[Nik Martin]

Jean-Francois Theroux wrote:
> Hello,
> 
>     At the office we have a Lucent PBX, which has 3 lines coming from 
> the CO. 2 are used for phones, 1 for fax. In the office, we have 16 
> phones. All those are connected in the PBX. We do not have an automated 
> system nor voicemail system for now. But this is something we would like 
> to have now. Since we do a lot of work with Linux, I was asked to look 
> into asterisk to deplace our PBX. Software-wise, I don't have any 
> problems yet, doesn't look too bad hard to configure.
> 
>     Now, I know I would need a quad-port FXO card for our lines coming 
> in from the CO in that PC. What would be the best way to connect all 
> those 16 digital phones to the Asterisk box? I could always buy 
> quad-ports FXS cards for now, as we don't use the 16 phones, but I don't 
> think that's going to work well in the future when the company grows and 
> we require more phones.
> 
>     Keep in mind telephony is very very new to me. Any help would be 
> very appreciated.
> 

Unfortunately, if you are going to be replacing the Lucent PBX, the 
phones are goinf to have to go to, unless thay are regular analog 
phones, which I seriously doubt.  You have a few options from there:

A channel bank connected to asterisk via a T-1 card, with analog phones 
connected to the channel bank ports

VOIP phones coonnected to the office's network. (this would be my 
recommendation)

There are other configuration options, but these are probably the most 
popular.