Making incoming calls also ring a phone line in remote offic

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Hello

We are about to have a second office, in a different city, and

would like that, when a call comes in on the number that customers are
used to dial, it will also ring a phone in the remote office, so that
whoever is available picks up the call. In other words, I’m not
looking for call rerouting.

Does someone know whether this feature is available from telco’s or
ISP’s, or do I have to get some miniPBX like Asterisk and maybe SIP phones to make this happen?

Thank you.

2

Asterisk can do this as a ring group calling all extensions at the same time. Why give ma bell the money?

3

Yes,Asterisk can do this. You can dial multiple phone number at the same time, by concatenating the destinations together with an ampersand[&],like this:

exten => 55555555,1,Dial(SIP/ISPProviderA:5060/66666666&SIP/ISPProviderB:5066/88888888)
4

OK. So, to set things up…

  1. In the main office, set up a Asterisk host, with an FXO card to connect to the POTS, an Ethernet card to connect it to the local LAN, a SIP phone to take calls in this office, and an ADSL modem to connect it to the Net

  2. In the remote office, set up ADSL and a SIP phone to take calls coming from that remote Asterisk PBX?

A couple of questions:

  • would it be easier/cheaper to just buy a couple of SIP phones (or other VoIP handsets) and subscribe to a VoIP carrier?
  • can I use a regular voice modem instead of an FXO card?

Thank you.

5

If you choose to go the Asterisk route, you have multiple options. You could add a remote extension as you mentioned. You could also simply call a remote number as part of the ringgroup. This would either require another pots line or a VoIP call with an outbound provider. That remote number could be any phone. (The existing phone, a cell phone, etc.).

If you want to go all VoIP, you have a lot of options to setup with a hosted solution. Many plans would allow you to have a couple of phones on the same number and who ever answers first ‘wins.’ Or you can look for a hosted provier that will give you individual extensions at each site and the ability to do ringgroups and similar. It’s a decision of if you want to go all VoIP or not and then how much you want to pay vs. how much you want to learn and burn your own time making it work. The Asterisk solution will probably be the cheapest and offer the most flexibility, but will require time to learn or pay someone to setup and maintain for you.

As far as the FXO card - you don’t want to get a cheap one. If you are cost sensitive, get a Siprua SPA3000 and use the extra FXS port with your existing analog phone instead of getting a sip phone. (btw - you might be able to do everything you want with a Sipura SPA-3000 and a sip phone or ATA at the remote office. Could be you could do close to everything you want with the Sipura and a sip phone or ata at the remote office. If you could, it would probably be the cheapest and easiest to maintain - but the hardest to get up and running.

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6

I’m still in the dark with VoIP, what the Sipura does, etc. but it’s slowly beginning to make sense :smile:

I’ll look into VoIP providers in Europe, although they seem to be less feature-rich than those in the US.

Thx a bunch.