I am new to the Asterisk PBX and have a lot of questions. I will start off with the more simple questions and post later for more information that I might need.
Currently, we run a Nortel system with about 12 T7316 hand sets. What other hardware is needed to connect these sets to an Asterisk PBX? I know that I need a T1 interface card such as Digium’s TE410P, but what else is needed to connect my current punch panel to the Linux box? In the future we plan on expanding the current phone lines to 20 or more, will additional equipment be needed to expand? Is there any other additional equipment that I am missing or not aware of?
[Edit]
Ok, how does a TE410P and a TDM2400P function with one another? My understanding is this… TE410P is the T1 or PRI interface while the TDM4200P heads out of the PBX to the phones themselves. Am I correct in my thinking?
If the lines are going to be plain POTS lines, then you will need to get a channelbank to convert the analog lines to digital to talk to the TE410P.
You channelbank will need to have FXO cards in it.
We are having good success with the Adit 600 channelbanks.
do a search for channelbanks and do research about which ones work better with *.
Of course, chances are that if you have 12 lines dropped into your office, then the carrier probably ran a T1 to your location and then broke it out with a channelbank at your site since it would probably be cheaper to do it that way for them.
You could just take the T1 straight from them and plug it into the TE410P card and let it talk to Asterisk. This should be a faster way of handling calls since it’s all digital. You will have the capability of taking 23 lines with that 1 T1 without them adding another T1.
the TE410P card will take up to 4 T1’s so you can go up to 92 lines with this configuration with all incoming telephone lines on the card.
This is also assuming that your channelbank will not be used for analog FXS phones and you will be using SIP/IAX/VOIP terminals for phones.
Hope this helps.
voip-info.org has good information for starting out too.
As far as your Meridian sets go, you MIGHT get away with the Citel SIP-N-MERIDIAN media convertor. The Anphenol connect (as I understand it) that plugs into your Merdian can be attached to this device instead, and then you get the phones converted to SIP.
Its compatibility with Asterisk would need to be further investigated thought i think.
I work for Citel Technologies. Citel manufactures a handset gateway that converts traditional PBX phones to SIP for use with SIP call controls. We are part of the Digium community and have completed interop testing with Asterisk.
In more detail, we “wake” up your 7316 handsets, they then are no longer Nortel phones. They are converted to Asterisk IP phones (in this case). As a user, you can then go in and reprogramm features, speeddials, etc. to the programmable keys on the phone.
The value is, you no longer have to purchase IP phones for compatibility with SIP. We allow you to maintain the investment in the traditional TDM handsets. In addition, all existing wiring stays in place and there is a significantly less amount of data traffice on the LAN. Therefore, the large LAN upgrade that is required to support all new IP phones becomes much less significant.