[Asterisk-Users] newbie uk questions...

[tim panton]

On 13 Mar 2005, at 11:21, Darrell Berry wrote:

> hi:
>
> Just starting out with *, and I'm planning to heed the advice to start 
> simple and small, but the goal i'm aiming for eventually is:
>
> *-based pbx for 10-20 seat small business, based in the UK. Users will 
> have PoE SIP hardphones. So far so good, but two questions, both 
> UK-specific, relating to connection to the outside world (PSTN or 
> VoIP):
>

> - failing that, what my options for *-compatible, UK-legal 
> interconnections between a *-based PBX and UK PSTN? I'm looking for 
> more channels than I will get from ISDN-2e, but less than ISDN-33 
> (probably): enough for say 4-8 simultaneous incoming/outgoing calls. I 
> admit this is the area I'm least clear on!
>
> Even better: has anyone actually implemented either of these scenarios 
> in the UK? Any feeeback/cheatsheets?
>

Yep, we are a few months further down the line than you.

Having had a total failure of our internet connection twice in a year
(both occasions lasting more than 24 hours) I shied away from the
pure VOIP route.

For historical reasons we have gone for an E1 (I happened to have one 
spare :-) )
even though we only have 5 users, so don't need the capacity
It works really well and gives us room to grow services etc.

We got lucky as when we ordered the line C+W (as was) were doing E1 with
a minimum of 6 channels, since they sold that business unit to NTL the 
minimum
is 8 channels - at ~ £15/month depending on the deal you strike.
BT offer something similar with free install if you commit for 3 years 
(or so I'm told).

Some implementation gotchas though (not really uk specific):
	1) DONT use WiFi to connect the phones, the quality just isn't there.
Even after lots of tweaking I still get the odd dropout in any call 
lasting longer than
a couple of mins (I suspect that WEP is switching keys....)
	2) Modem lines are a problem. I have a couple of projects we support 
by dialup
and going through asterisk is possible, but you get a slower connection.
	3) I'm still investigating fax, but it looks like it is also possible 
with very careful
setup.
	4) when ordering the E1 line make sure you specify Q931, otherwise you 
may
get something proprietary .


If you want to have a chat about it drop me an email off list.

Tim.

http://www.westhawk.co.uk/