I am trying to intergrate my panasonic ta308 pbx system with asterisks.
My main goal is to
Keep the functionality of the existing PBX
provide VOIP
add in addtional extensions via IP SIP phones
The TA 308 has 8 FXS ports and 2 FX0 ports. Their are 2 incoming PSTN lines.
7 of the FXS ports have the traditional pbx phones with extension numbers 101 to 107
The 8th FXS port is hook to the asterisk TDM FXO port.
I just need some hints on the next step to complete the setup.
any guidance will be helpfull.
Frankly, your Panasonic system is so small it would not be worth the effort to try an integration project.
I’m of the opinion that you’re better off just building an entirely new Asterisk system, and migrating all of the system services from the Panasonic system to the Asterisk. Asterisk is just right for a small user group like yours.
There’s no advantage to keeping the Panasonic system in service. The users on the Asterisk system can’t take advantage of the features of the Panasonic system anyway. (And vice versa.) About all you can share is the Asterisk voicemail system.
You can sell the Panasonic system later to defer the cost of replacing the phones with VOIP phones.
I see your point, however this is would be my first intergration of a lagacy pbx and would be a good learning experience. I need to get the basics of lagacy pbx intergration.
The existing system is in a double story complex with inwhich the existing wires arent accessable. There is no way of rewiring with cat5 cable without major cost invovled. So I need to know the basics of pbx intergation for this system in any case.
In your case, I would just purchase one or two analog interfaces. (The Digium cards are very good.)
Build some FXO and FXS ports onto the Asterisk box, and do a simple analog integration.
It really depends on the type of integration you can do from the Panasonic system. If you have to do station integration to the Asterisk box, you’ll find that you’ll need to dial an extension (say, 150) on the Panasonic system, which will ring the Asterisk Box. I’d then setup the Asterisk box to use an IVR that will collect additional digits from the caller, to complete calls to Asterisk stations.
It’s not a perfect solution, but when you’re not dealing strictly with trunk signalling, you lose a bit of functionality.
If the Panasonic system can spare a couple of trunks, and can have multiple trunk groups, (so you can dial 9 to get outside on the Panasonic system, and 8 to get to the Asterisk box from the Panasonic system) you could do trunk integrations. But it assumes a great deal is possible with the Panasonic system’s dial plan, and trunking.