Hardware setup/recipe

Asterisk Asterisk General
1

Hello,
Id like to build a system with Asterisk. Im a newbie. I dont know much about telephony, hardware-wise. Im not too worried about doing the Linux stuff. My questions relate to the initial hardware setup of an Asterisk PBX system and what is needed to make all of it work together.
I currently have a T1, and a PBX in place: it has 80 extensions (about 50 are in use), vmail, acds, and some conferencing. I have analog phones.
So far, Ive seen help on selecting the type of telephony card and tower I will need. My question is: once Ive inserted the telephony card into the computer tower, whats next? What bridges my computer tower to my phones? Channel banks? That piece is missing for me… Im assuming that my tower’s ethernet port connects to a device of some sort (possibly a channel bank, and from there, I can chain them up) that in turn, connects to my phones…
Are there clear tutorials/instructions for this somewhere?
What if I didnt want to deal with channel banks? Could I just connect my tower to a VOIP router of some sort? Avoid having to buy a bunch of banks that probably take a lot of space…

2

The interface between analog phones and Asterisk its made by Zaptel/Dahdi: The drivers for manage the Digital and Analog Cards, This can be done with configuring properly all of the configs files. You can add TDM cards with FXs ports to attach your phones directly.

Or maybe you want to buy some ATA’s -like grandstream GXW4024- instead a channel bank -xorcom-. If you select ATAs you need to configure like a SIP device (sip.conf); if you select Channel banks You need to configure the zapata.conf/chan_dahdi.conf for use them.

Most ATAs are connected to a normal switch, and the xorcom’s channel banks are connected directly to server via USB

3

So, to clarify:
If I dont use a channel bank, I could use a switch to bridge my phone lines to the PBX?
The setup would be:

  1. PBX with PRI card in the server
  2. Network card in the server
  3. A network cable connecting the server to the switch
  4. My phone cables terminating at the switch

Also, you’re saying that if I use an ATA (which I assume the PRI card can be), I will then need to configure using the SIP protocol… Did I interpret this correctly?

R

4

[quote=“rmonette”]So, to clarify:
If I dont use a channel bank, I could use a switch to bridge my phone lines to the PBX? [/quote]
Nope, you need a ATA, Phones are attached to teh ATA, ATA is attached to the switch.

[quote]The setup would be:

  1. PBX with PRI card in the server[/quote]
    Yes, if you will use an E1/T1 line.

Nope, The phone cable phones will be connected to ATA or Channelbank. ATA to switch, channelbank like xorcom via USB to the server

[quote]Also, you’re saying that if I use an ATA (which I assume the PRI card can be), I will then need to configure using the SIP protocol… Did I interpret this correctly?

R[/quote]
ATA is different to a PRI card, ATA means: Analog telephone adapter and it convert the analog signall into a VoIP signall -SIP signall mostly-, so if you will use ATAs you need to define peers in sip.conf.

5

Connecting an analog telephone via ATA is fairly simple. If you want a test unit, try the Linksys SPA3102. I had mine up and running in under 20 minutes.

6

I don’t have nor use any variant SPA3K device. However, searching through Google, I noticed a lot of SPA3K owners share one similar complain about their SPA3K: Echo. I wondered if you have experienced an echo issue with your SPA3K through its FXO port.