[Asterisk-Users] Dumb question - reaching the PSTN

[Jonathan k. Creasy]

This is not a dumb question. 

Most of the other replies I have read mentioned various ways to connect
to the pstn. I wanted to mention why it makes sense to do that. Many of
the companies I have installed asterisk for didn't even have their
system on a network with a gateway. They have dedicated networks built
for the phones and the Asterisk server acts as a dhcp, ntp and ftp
server as well as the PBX. The only devices on the networks were phones.
They use it as a really nice phone system and use "old fashioned"
termination. 

-Jonathan

> -----Original Message-----
> From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Charles Marcus
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 5:38 PM
> To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Dumb question - reaching the PSTN
> 
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I am fairly new to the idea of VoIP, although I've been reading about
it
> off and on for the last few years. Now it is starting to look mature
> enough to consider implementing it, but there is one thing that I
> haven't been able to get a clear answer on...
> 
> With Vonage, you are using the Vonage network - it is their
> responsibility to route your call to the endpoint, which is more than
> likely on the old fashined PSTN.
> 
> If I install Asterisk, how do my calls actually get completed? How do
> they get 'bridged' over to the PSTN?
> 
> I attended a Seminar today hosted by Dynasis, and one of the issues
was
> VoIP. ShoreTel was there, and the said I had to have phone lines,
> whether they were POTS lines, chennels from a T-1, whatever, we still
> had to have phone lines.
> 
> Now I'm confused.
> 
> If I implement an Asterisk based system (yes, I'd be paying a
consultant
> to help), will I still have to maintain phone lines and pay full price
> for Long Distance?
> 
> Simple pointers to White Papers on this issue will be sufficient.
> 
> Many thanks,
> 
> --
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Charles
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