So i’m new to the whole telecom thing. I am trying to set up a simple system for my SOHO. I have standard phone line, and a linux server all ready to go. I don’t need help with the installation of Asterisk… its more the hardware side that I get lost. Please help me understand this correctly. I will need a X100P FXO card, right? But then how do I connect other phones (2-5 of them) to the asterisk server? Ethernet?? Does that mean I will need to get VoIP phones then? And if I only have one phone line, can more then one person dial out? If I am not at the office can it forward a call to my cell phone? I guess I really just need to hardware part explained to me for my setup, which is 1 phone line, and 2-5 phones. Also, what would the cost advantages be if I did switch to using VoIP instead of a normal phone line? Would I even need my normal phone line? Or can I just use the DSL line for that? Thanks for your help in advance.
Depends on how you want to do it. You could use a VOIP provider for calls to/from the pstn. I use Broadvoice.
You will either need VOIP phones or FXS ports for you analog phones
If you use an analog line, yes. You would probably be better off using a VOIP provider.
Depends again on how you connec to the PSTN. I do this with my VOIP provider.
How tall is tall? You would need to figure this one out. I always like to look at an Asterisk solution from a TCO and ROI point of view.