[asterisk-users] Asterisk connected to the PSTN vs. a commercial solution

[Noah Miller]

Hi Alejandro -

> Dear all, now I'm using an Asterisk 1.4.13 SIP server with 50 SIP users
> and it works very well only in an intranet environment (no connections
> to the PSTN world).
>
> But in the near future, we have to plan a telephone system that works in
> the intranet (voip) and also it must be connected to the PSTN public
> network with a T1/E1 trunk, with 200 SIP users aproximately. So at first
> I have to ways to do that:
>
> 1- Continue using Asterisk and adding a T1/E1 interface in order to
> connect to the PSTN

This is exactly what asterisk was designed to do.


> 2- Discard Asterisk and buy a commercial solution, because we have the
> money
>
> My questions are: does Asterisk work in the scenario I've described ????

Yes.  I've used it in just the way you describe in a number of
production environments with great success.


> What is the best solution you can recommend to me ???

Get what you WANT.  Both Asterisk and commercial solutions will
probably work well for you (just be sure to use quality hardware).
With asterisk you get great flexibility and expandability.  With a
commercial solution you get less of that, but you get to blame someone
else if the system fails.

Talk to management.  What do THEY want?  As has been discussed here
before, nobody ever got fired for buying Cisco, but that doesn't mean
Cisco is any better than any other vendor, including Digium/Asterisk.
Find out what the needs of your company are and get the system that
best fits those needs.


- Noah