First time user

Hi everyone.
I’m actually really new to asterisk. Starting a small business, just want to ask for a few tips.

My situation is:
I want to have a small business phone system set up. I have already bought 4 phone lines from Verizon. And I only want to publish ONE phone number out to public (advertising), and when people call that number, all 4 phones in my office will ring. And while one of the employees is on the phone, if someone calls the same number, the other 3 phones will ring.
so 4 lines bought from verizon, split into 4 extensions.

I need

  1. Server/computer that has asterisk installed
  2. 4 FXO port PCI card
  3. 4 FXS port PCI card

is there something else i can use besides the PCI card?
And is my set up right? Someone please help.

Oh and I’m gonna be using 4 ANALOG phones.

bump!
someone please help

Hi

If you have 4 lines with teh same number from verizon as you describe and yo want 4 analog extensions then you dont need anything else to do what you want.

I have to say you have gone about it an expensive way but hey…

Ian

i have 4 lines with 4 different numbers.

This isn’t PRI or VoIP DIDs right? Because it sounds like you have purchased 4 lines from Verizon with different numbers wanting to use them all with ONE phone number. This, doesn’t work…

Unless verizon decides to reprogram their switch for you to check for congestion/busy signaling and then direct to the next line, or you purchased 4 lines that were setup for this…

OR, and this is a big OR (that’s why they’re bolded…) if verizon were to offer “Call Forward on BUSY” you could, theoretically chain them together as some sort of Ghetto rigged PRI. Where upon sensing the main number is busy, it would forward to the next number, doing this with the primary number + 2 additional numbers would accomplish this. That would be oh so hilarious if it were to work, actually the idea alone is kinda making me cringe…

thanks for your reply!
In my situation, where I want to use 4 phones in the office. With 4 extensions, but when people call ONE number, all 4 phones ring, and all 4 phones can call out at the same time. What should I do?

  1. Get Verizon to configure your 4 analog lines as a hunt group. That will allow up to four callers who dial the main number to reach any non-busy line in the group.

  2. Connect the four lines to four FXO ports on an ATA board in your Asterisk box.

  3. Program the incoming call handling for these four lines to a ring group.

  4. Make your four telephone sets members of this ring group.

All non-busy stations will ring when any one of the four incoming lines receives a call. The first station to answer gets the call.

THANKS A LOT.
i’ll be working on this…
have a lot of questions to ask in the future.