I am new to the whole asterisk system so please bear with me.
I am looking for a PBX system for a new office of ours. I will list my requirements and my proposed solution. Can someone validate that asterisk can support the requirements and this is the best solution. I would appreciate any feedback for improvements or suggestions.
Requirements:
4 Inbound telco (POTS) lines
5 extensions
Voicemail with remote retrieval
Call forwarding- If away from desk call will be forwarded to cell/home/etc.
2 outbound VOIP line- for the call forwarding
Proposed Solution:
I have a older PII server computer that I will use for the system. I understand that if I buy the TDM400 card with 4 X100M modules I will be connected and ready to connect to POTS. I will then buy sip phones. I have a cable internet connection.
Concerns:
Can the forwarding be done via VOIP?
Do I need any other hardware?- (I read something about echo cancelling)
Are there benefits or fallbacks to having an external gateway like the one you mentioned? Are they more difficult to set up? What is the absolute cheapest way to get 4 FXO ports on my setup. Is there a specific generic card that is cheap and will do the job?
The major benefit, as I told you, is a minor load on the Asterisk server, because the gateway takes cares of interacting with the pstn.
Could be, in general they have many parameters so at least the first time can be difficult to setup.
I wouldn’t go along the cheapest way but along a safe way, so if you want an internal card choose a Digium one, to me is the better choice; for 4 fxo ports a Digium card should be cheaper than an external gateway also.