I live at a dorm with 100 residents divided in two buildings. We have an old analog doorphone system which require each resident to have an analog phone in their room. The current analog system is buggy, unstable and outdated, which is why we want to completely replace it with a new VoIP-system with new hardware.
Hardware reqirements:
We would like a setup with two doorphones (one per building), with a dedicated button per resident in that building (50 per terminal), plus maybe two or four buttons so you can call the old analog phones in the common areas. These old analog phones will most likely also be replaced with new VoIP-phones.
We will also need the ability to send a signal to the door latch mechanism.
Has to be rated for outdoor installation. (It’s quite cold and wet here most of the year)
PoE (Power over ethernet) is also of some value to us, although it is not a deciding factor.
Depending on price and availible models a keypad-terminal would also be acceptable, although the other is preferred.
Software requirements:
We would like to forward all doorphone calls to the residents cell phone, and maybe forward the call to the common area phones after X time.
We would like the ability to catch a single DTMF-key-press to release the doorlatch.
Interface to easily update the phone number database when a resident moves in/out.
Set a time limit of e.g. 5 min. to avoid abuse.
2 outgoing VoIP-lines. (One for each terminal)
No outgoing calls from common area phones.
Ability to run the Asterisk server on a virtual machine.
We feel comfortable setting up the Asterisk server, but know nothing about VoIP-hardware so we need help with recommandations for hardware and what other infrastructure will be needed to realise the project.
Also if you see any pitfalls in the desired configuration, we will value your opinion.
Thank you for your time, your help is greatly appreciated! =)
He’s presumably in a country where local calls are free and mobile calls are charged to the recipient. That includes the USA and China. I would guess the USA in this case.
Where are you based as recomending hardware is dependant on where you are.[/quote]
The dormitory is in Denmark, so hardware available in the EU is fine, although a domestic vendor is preferred due to the protection in the Danish sale of goods act.
We will find a cheap VoIP-provider when we get further in planning the project.
By the way; it’s illegal to charge the recipient without consent in Denmark.
I would have thought that the mobile network’s terminating charge would be a significant part of the call cost that could not be eliminated by a “cheap VoIP provider”.
I assume that Danish mobile networks charge the receiving party for incoming calls when they are roaming.
As I understand the US situation, mobile numbers are numbered within the national number group for the terminating home location. Callers pay as though they were calling a landline in the same area (i.e. free if the call is local) and the callee pays for the air time segment from the home location to their mobile. That means the charge to the mobile only depends on their location, and the duration of the call, not whether there is any premium rate element.
We are contemplating buying a 2-module solution with a DoorModule and a DisplayModule from Baudisch, because the solution with 52 Buttons per terminal will be 4 times as expensive. http://www.baudisch.de/produkte/sip-modulsystem
Comments and recommendations are appreciated.
We also want 4 new VoIP-phones for the dormitory’s common areas, but are not sure on what hardware to get. Our only requirements are that they should be:
Simple
Wall mountable
Can send a DTMF-tone or UDP-command to the door phones.
Reports I’ve seen here suggest to me that you should avoid Cisco phones when using SIP. At least on earlier version, the SIP implementation appears to have limitations.
DTMF/RFC 2833 should not be a problem on modern SIP phones.
You should consider whether you want phones that can be configured to be able to be forced to automatically go off hook in handsfree mode.
[quote=“david55”]Reports I’ve seen here suggest to me that you should avoid Cisco phones when using SIP. At least on earlier version, the SIP implementation appears to have limitations.
DTMF/RFC 2833 should not be a problem on modern SIP phones.
You should consider whether you want phones that can be configured to be able to be forced to automatically go off hook in handsfree mode.[/quote]
The phones only have to take incoming calls and be able to send a DTMF-tone back.
No other fancy functionality is required, thank you. =)