A simple question - School setup

This is the very first time that I am investigating VoIP and so know nothing about it.

On doing a search with VoIp, Asterisk came up and it looks great!

We are busy upgrading our school network an I’d like to put in a network based, PBX type server so that staff can reach each other from their classrooms/laptops.

Besides the Astrisk server do the workstations need any special hardware or can all comms be done via the sound card and network cards?
8)

Yes you can use soft clients and sound cards, you can also purchase sip devices, iax devices, h323 device , or digium pstn cards for interfacing with real products. However your setup sounds like all you will really need are some soft phones

Thanks for that.

Step one:

  1. Set up a linux box - which distro would you recommend for this
  2. Install Astrisk - is there an RPM available or do I need to compile the app myself. The docs said something about Bison … makes me a little nervous :wink:
  3. Get the Softphones working
  4. Ultimately breakout onto our main switchboard so that we can phone out of the school

Cheers

1)Its really easy to compile, if you are unsure of yourself I would def. reccomend debian.
2) I would reccomend building from scratch
3) pick soft phones iax phone for windows iax comm for everything else
4) yup get a tdm to connect to switchboard and slowly overtake the world.