I’m preparing to set up an Asterisk system in my home and I’m pondering what hardware I will need (other than the server and network gear). I’m thinking that I’ll at least need a Digium AEX411E (or maybe AEX401E) for the FXO port with echo cancellation to connect to the PSTN. Ultimately what I would like to wind up with is a nice voice mail and IVR system to screen and route calls with a couple of IP phones integrated with my 10 or 12 analog phones, caller ID displays and a modem. I’m sure I’ll implement other features as the need arises or ideas occur to me.
My house is wired with cat5e and each outlet is configured for one network jack and one phone jack. There is no difference in the cabling other than the fact that the cabling for the phone port is yellow and terminates at two ChannelPlus DMT-24 distribution modules. The network cabling is blue and terminates at two Cisco switches, one of which is a POE switch with some available ports for IP phones. All connectors are RJ45. I have a wiring closet that has room for this equipment and I’ve got several 1U servers, one of which I will dedicate to the Asterisk server. The server has two available PCI express slots as well as some USB 2.0 ports. It would be great if I could integrate the 32 cables currently configured for phone with Asterisk as analog ports and then just plug any future IP phones into a network jack which I will route to the POE switch.
The AEX411E will give me VOIP but what would be the best hardware to integrate the analog phones/jacks with Asterisk? I was looking at the Astribank channel banks as one option. Expensive at around $2000 for 32 FXS ports. Would also need some RJ45 to RJ11 adapters. Anyway, any recommendations would be much appreciated.