Point a Noob in the right direction

Asterisk Asterisk General
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I’ve been a longtime Windows user who recently discover Linux. I was so taken back by Ubuntu it inspired me to start a blog (judging by the absence of comments - I’m thinking not a very good one)

I’ve installed AsteriskNOW on a spare box and I have a few Cisco IP phones. I’ve searched the forum and found a wealth of docs that I’m about to start reading, but I was hoping someone would be kind enough to help with a few questions.

  1. I’m partly wanting to do this for a topic to blog about but also to use for my home office. Am I foolish to consider something so sophisticated for a 2 or 3 extension (plus FAX) setup?

  2. I’ve searched the forum for service providers but with limited success. I’ve googled for directories of providers but nowadays its hard to tell whats a legit review site and one setup to advertise. For a my situation can someone be kind enough to point me to a good place to research providers or recommend some providers?

thx in advance
Joeallenwrench

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  1. No not foolish if its something you want to learn and have fun with. If you have the hardware why not :smile:
    I haven’t touched faxing through Asterisk yet but when I do spring for a TDM421[B|E] I’m going to try it. 1 FXO for incoming line, 1 FXS for whole house DECT phones, 1 FXS for Fax Machine. But convincing my wife its ok to purchase is going to take a while since it doesn’t carry a price tag conducive to home use. Right now my home/office setup is strictly VoIP.

  2. I’ve had good luck with the Canadian company les.net and a US Company Voicepulse (connect.voicepulse.com) They are not the “cheapest” but they are pretty reliable in my experience.

Good luck and have fun doing so!

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Thanks,

I was researching on voip-info.org where they have a comprehensive list, but so many of the providers they include don’t offer basic voip, so many they’re more enterprise or are like vonage.

I’m still surprised by the absence of topics on this forum just on service providers…it seams to me like it would be a big deal…

One other question, for my application do you think I need a dedicated box for Asterisk? I wanted to aslo use it for a file server. The box is a pent 4 class desktop w/ 1 gig mem…

Its funny how our wives play a role, I’m not complaining, just pointing out its funny.

thanks again

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In case some on else is researching providers…I found a better list here:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/SIP%252FIAX+Services+for+Asterisk