Complete noob searching answers

Hello all.

From time to time I like to read up on new things, and now I’ve come across Asterisk. As VOIP subscriptions are becoming cheaper here in Norway I would like to setup a Asteriks server at home.

I would love to use a couple of my old analouge phones, and maybe a faxmachine later on, if I can get it going.

I do not have any old analouge or ISDN phonelines in my home, just a couple of SIP accounts with my VOIP provider, that I use with a FritzBOX combined router,modem, wireless and two analouge phone adapters today. (Works great)

I have been looking at Trixbox as it seems easy to setup, everything beeing on an ISO file to download.

What I can’t grasp is this:

  1. Where do I connect my analouge phones?? To a SIP adapter like the Sipura adapters, or maybe the FritzBOX I already have.

  2. Are there any PCI adapters I could plug into my server that will just give me possibility of plugging a couple of analouge phones to it?

  3. Where do I put my VOIP providers SIP login information?? In the Asteriks server?

  4. What login info do I put in the Sipura adapter?? The info I create for my Asteriks server??

Best regards
TommyE

  1. your analogue phones can be connected to FXS ports in your server, via e.g. Digium TDM400 (with FXS modules), or a Sangoma A200 (again, with FXS module(s)), or via an ATA like the Sipura/Linksys. i prefer the Linksys-style option, as it gives you more flexibility with physical location if you already have network cables around, and it cheaper per-port to provision.

you might be able to use your Fritzbox if it can register with the Asterisk server as a user/peer.

  1. see 1

  2. if you’re using a FreePBX-based setup (like TrixBox) then there is a “Trunk” module that lets you create a SIP trunk to your provider, complete with dialling rules etc.

  3. if using a Sipura/Linksys adapter (or anything that needs to connect to Asterisk), the info you set it up with will have to be the same as Asterisk is expecting. most devices have a web front-end, some are provisioned with TFTP config files. if using something like a PAP2 you enter login credentials that you created in FreePBX for the “extensions”.

Great thanks for your fast reply.

Now I can rip out for sure those old analouge modems :blush: Thought I could use them as an analouge interface. :blush:

Googling around I found this asteriskguru.com/tutorials/fritz_box.html seems like I can use my FritzBox. Cool.

This will give me a cheap start.

Best regards
TommyE

Is there any possibility to use one of those cheap Skype phones as a phone for Asteriks?

Regards
TommyE

those “cheap Skype phones” are usually just USB sound devices, and know nothing of any VoIP protocol … it’s all in the software.

you can use one with something like IDEFisk or X-Lite though … but it’s (imo) a nasty, cheap alternative to a “real” device.