Dear All,
I am interested in setting up an Asterix box which I can replace my existing home phone setup. What I want is to be able to connect my existing phone (analog PSTN phone system) into a Asterix box which can then dialout using SIP but receive incoming phone calls using my existing PSTN phone connection. I am using ADSL as my internet connection.
I have purchase a Netcomm V100 Analog to VoIP SIP Connection and is it possible to connect this device somehow into the Asterix box?
If anyone could help me see if this is possible and what I need to do that would be great.
Well, i think it’s simple. But then i’ve had 10 years experience of administering Linux systems and have a good knowledge of networking and telephony - and i’ve also been running Asterisk for over a year now. It’s impossible to tell you whether you’ll think it’s simple or not - probably not at first, but once you get over the learning curve you may end up wondering how you ever did without it!
If you want simple, then just buy a hardware SIP phone and configure it to work with one or two internet telephony services. The Netcomm V85 SIP phone is apparently pretty good, the Grandstream BudgeTone 101 is about the cheapest.
Thanks. I have over 10 years Unix/Linux Sys Admin experience so the Operating System side would not be a problem. What I am after is what I need to plug my analog phones into a telephony gateway so I can dial out using SIP and still receive phone calls (incoming) using my regular PSTN phone number. If I can acheive this with minial cost then that is what I am after. Also as there is an aweful lot of information on Asterix I was after a pointer to where I can go to understand what I need to do and buy.
If this something you have done then it would be nice to see what it cost you (I am an Australian) and what you needed to do to accomplish this.
Kurt, I’m not familiar with the device you mentioned, but it sounds like it’s an ATA designed to let you convert an analog phone into a SIP device. In other words, it gives dialtone to your phone on one end, and is an ethernet node on the other end.
The other side of the equation, connecting to the PSTN, requires a PCI board in your computer. I have an X100P clone that I bought on ebay for about $12 + shipping. Seems to work fine.
Overall, setting up a basic Asterisk installation isn’t terribly complicated. Probably on the order of complexity of setting up a web site or a database server. Like web sites and databases, the complexity comes about in building applications. With asterisk, the limit is up to your imagination.
A VoIP account, a PCI FXO card, an ATA device, the Asterisk book, the Voip-info site, and a lot of coffee will get you pretty far. There’s no real “roadmap” of where to start. As an open source project, the documentation of Asterisk is poor-to-fair at best. The Voip-info site is loaded with info, but you’re right, it’s hard to know where to start. I think the book is the best starting point.
The simplest way to connect an analog phone to Asterisk is with an ATA (analog telephony adapter). To connect Asterisk to exchange lines, you need something like a TDM400P with an FXO port for the exchange line. You could skip the ATAs and use, say, a TDM400P with 1 FXO port and 3 FXS ports - for you analog phones to connect to. But it depends what you mean by “minimal cost” as this configuration (i.e., a TDM400P+13B) will cost you about AU$500.
However, as Greyhound says, you could give the X100p a try, if you can get hold of one - some reckon it works well, others don’t.
ATP is an Aus supplier of Digium boards, as well as ATAs, hardphones, etc:
They’ve also got a good comparison list of Aus ITSPs and some useful forums.
As for what it cost me, i don’t use PSTN at all at home any more. I do all my telephony (apart from mobile) through my Asterisk server - including a DID (direct in-dial) number from ATP.