First Asterisk project - seeking hardware recommendations

Hello!

I’m looking at setting up Asterisk on one of my Ubuntu boxes. This would just be for my home - I plan to replace Vonage with Google Voice running through Asterisk. A second part of my project will be setting up an Android phone as an additional extension. As far as I can tell, the only hardware I need is an FXS PCI card.

Just wondering what recommendations the community might have for a newbie such as myself?

Thanks!

Is not good idea replacer your Vonage service with Google Voice. Google Sets the Date for the End of XMPP with Google Voice.

for setting up an Android phone as an additional extension. There are many SIP clients like : CSipSimple, ZOIPER

If you decide keep your Vonage service , you can integrate this service with Asterisk using an Analog Card with an FXO port. If you get the SIP credentials of your Vonage account you can avoid the card, and setup a SIP trunk between Asterisk and Vonage. But it is really hard to get that information.

Thank you very much for the heads-up on Google Voice. I was unaware they are discontinuing XMPP support. It’s a good thing this project has been on my backburner for so long.

I don’t like Vonage because of the price. They are up to $35/mo. now, so I’d rather just ditch them altogether. They were innovative in 2005, but now I feel they are too expensive.

I am now looking for a quality provider that charges à la carte for its services, and I have to say I am having a hard time comparing different providers and their packages. I simply want to transfer my Vonage number to the provider and have calls with minimal latency. It would also be nice if I could add SMS, but this seems to be ridiculously expensive, and features such as voicemail and management of voicemail, I presume can be handled server-side? It seems like so many of the providers have various services they want to throw at me, and all I want is to connect an Asterisk server to the PSTN.

You mentioned using an analog card with an FXO port. My understanding is that I need an FXS card to connect my Asterisk box to my home telephone system. Is this not correct?

FXS and FXO are the name of the ports used by analog phone lines (also known as POTS – Plain Old Telephone Service) or phones.

FXS – Foreign eXchange Subscriber interface is the port that actually delivers the analog line to the subscriber. In other words it is the ‘plug on the wall’ that delivers a dial tone, battery current and ring voltage.

FXO – Foreign eXchange Office interface is the port that receives the analog line. It is the plug on the phone or fax machine, or the plug(s) on your analog phone system. It delivers an on-hook/off-hook indication (loop closure). Since the FXO port is attached to a device, such as a fax or phone, the device is often called the ‘FXO device’.
3cx.com/pbx/fxs-fxo/

So, which cards do I need if I want to run an Asterisk server that connects to my home telephones?

Did you read the post above ?

Keep it simple

If you want to connect your analog phone line to your Asterisk, you need FXO ports

If you want you connect analog devices such as a fax or phone, you need FXS ports.

Here you can get the card digium.com/en/products/telep … rds/analog

If you “ditch” Vonage then you don’t need that FXO card, and can host your Asterisk server “in the cloud” instead, with your choice of another low cost VoIP provider. Here’s a good list of them:
pbxinaflash.com/community/index. … far.13382/

To set up your Asterisk server in the cloud and secure it, please refer to my detailed how-to which was posted in an earlier thread:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=89191