I’m confused by FXS/FXO. From what I have read, I would need a TDM400 or TDM2400 configured as FXO in order to attach to my Vonage ATA. Is this correct?
Thanks!
b
Yes, I think this is the only way you can connect vonage to asterisk. With FXO card you will be converting digital signal to analog and your vonage will convert anolog back to digital. Doing this you may loose voice quality.
I believe if you check you will find Vonage uses a SIP connection over your broadband not over standard landlines. Therefore it would be an FXS connection and not a FXO. In fact if you were to buy a Vonage ATA it would be the LinkSys PAP2 which is a daul FXS ATA. So with Asterisk if it is connected you would not even need a TDM card or even an ATA to have a connection between the Asterisk and Vonage over the Internet. Next it comes down to what type of phone you using, Is it an analog or an SIP IP phone (even if it is a softphone). If you are using a analog phone you will need a FXS connection to your analog phone.
Simple rule of thumb, FXO connect to your landline phone provider, FXS connect to your analog phone unit.
hermatite,
This is where it gets confusing. From what I have read, an FXS device provides a dial tone, and an FXO device essentially “receives” the dial tone. In doing more research, I found the following URL very helpful - http://www.qtelnet.com/downloads/FXO-vs-FXS-v3.pdf.
So your comment about the ATA being a dual FXS device makes sense, the ATA would produce a dial tone.
If that is the case, then it would make sense that the other end of the ATA would be an FXO card/device.
Let me ask some questions (you don’t need to answer) which you should be asking yourself before you join Vonage.
- Are you going to be using Vonage for personal or business?
- How many long distance calls are you going to make a month?
- Are you using Vonage for a local DID (dial in direct) number?
- Are you planning on calling other people by PC-PC calls?
- If #4 is yes, are those people currently using Vonage or some other VoIP service?
- Do you need a toll free number (or would it help to have one?)
Depending on your answers to the above questions you might find it cheaper to use a different VoIP provider. For example if you are going to use Vonage for a local DID and make few long distance calls per month. It might be cheaper to pay about $9.00 for unlimited local DID and a pre-paid long distance service.
If your friends/family are not already signed up with Vonage but are planning on signup so you can talk to them via PC-PC and they already have a phone service they are not planning on getting rid of, you might be better off signing up with something like FreeWorldDialUp to support the PC-PC/Asterisk.
What I’m really trying to tell you is to answer the questions for yourself and then do some research. It is very possible you can do cheaper than Vonage depending on your needs. For example $9.00/month + 500 minutes of long distance server at $0.014 per minute (in the US and Canada) is the same price as the $15/month Vonage charges and if you use FWD for the PC-PC you have the same features as Vonage.
It is also dpending on your answers Vonage would be your best choice.
Just do the research first.
Just out of curiosity, if you’re a current Vonage customer and you did add their SoftPhone add-on for $9.99 a month, does that account work well with Asterisk as a standard SIP account?
Not that I would ever even consider it, just curious.
[quote]Let me ask some questions (you don’t need to answer) which you should be asking yourself before you join Vonage.
- Are you going to be using Vonage for personal or business?
- How many long distance calls are you going to make a month?
- Are you using Vonage for a local DID (dial in direct) number?
- Are you planning on calling other people by PC-PC calls?
- If #4 is yes, are those people currently using Vonage or some other VoIP service?
- Do you need a toll free number (or would it help to have one?)
Depending on your answers to the above questions you might find it cheaper to use a different VoIP provider. For example if you are going to use Vonage for a local DID and make few long distance calls per month. It might be cheaper to pay about $9.00 for unlimited local DID and a pre-paid long distance service.
If your friends/family are not already signed up with Vonage but are planning on signup so you can talk to them via PC-PC and they already have a phone service they are not planning on getting rid of, you might be better off signing up with something like FreeWorldDialUp to support the PC-PC/Asterisk.
What I’m really trying to tell you is to answer the questions for yourself and then do some research. It is very possible you can do cheaper than Vonage depending on your needs. For example $9.00/month + 500 minutes of long distance server at $0.014 per minute (in the US and Canada) is the same price as the $15/month Vonage charges and if you use FWD for the PC-PC you have the same features as Vonage.
It is also dpending on your answers Vonage would be your best choice.
Just do the research first.[/quote]
hermatite,
I’m actually already a Vonage customer. We use it for both personal and business. In fact, we have 5 Vonage lines! We have been very happy with Vonage, and do not desire to change them. I just want to figure out a way of working with them better.
[quote]Just out of curiosity, if you’re a current Vonage customer and you did add their SoftPhone add-on for $9.99 a month, does that account work well with Asterisk as a standard SIP account?
[/quote]
am800,
I’ve never thought of your suggestion, but you know, it might work. I’m going to call Vonage tomorrow to find out. Great suggestion.
You can add SIP trunks for secondary vonage numbers that are setup to use the softphone. It works quite well and lets you bypass the ATA and hardware for Asterisk. My last test box was using a physical land line and a Vonage line via ATA through digium cards as well as SIP trunks for a Vonage softphone account and a Broadvoice account. All four lines behaved as your would expect.
This will get you started
voip-info.org/tiki-index.php … and+Vonage
Sorry, but I had to delete that drive so I don’t have my final configuration handy.
Teran,
Thanks for that info. I’ll contact Vonage and see what I can do. This makes my life so much easier (and cheaper). It’s much much cheaper to buy one X100P than to buy a TDM04B!
ben
I was only trying to say what Teran is saying: quote from Teran.
My last test box was using a physical land line and a Vonage line via ATA through digium cards as well as SIP trunks for a Vonage softphone account and a Broadvoice account.
If you have calls coming into asterisk box and you want those calls to be routed to PSTN via vonage ATA then your digium card will work as FXO and the cable coming out of FXO card will be connected to vonage ATA. Although like Teran is saying you can use vonage softphone account and not connect ATA. But with softphone account you only get 500 minutes for a set amount and its not an unlimited account.
But if you connect vonage ATA using digium FXO card then digium card will convert digital signal to analog and vonage ATA will convert it back to digital. In doing all this you may lose voice quality. On the other hand if you use softphone account you make get better voice quality but only limited 500 minutes.
let me know if someone thinks otherwise.
Just checked with Vonage. Unfortunately, I can’t port my number from my ATA’s to a Softphone! So it means potentially moving to another provider.