Proposed setup for PBX

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

Hi all,
I am new to this and I want to see how much I can do on my own. This is what I currently have but want to replace:

[ul][li]5 POTS lines from a US phone company. We use them with ADSL2+ service too.[/li]
[li]1 ancient (and nearly broken) Lucent PBX[/li]
[li]12 ancient (but paid for) MLS12D AT&T phones[/li][/ul]

Here is what I ask: Does it make more sense to struggle at making my old MLS12D phones work using some weird interface card on the server or does it make more (financial and emotional) sense to get special VoIP phones to replace the old AT&T phones?

Here is what I propose… Will it work?:

[ul][li]Dell Core 2 Duo W/ 4GB ram (<$100)[/li]
[li]TDM400P-40 card with 4 FXO (<$100)[/li]
[li]TDM400P-13 card with 1 FXO and 3 FXS (for a fax machine, copy machine, and stamp printer) (<$100)[/li]
[li]A bunch of Cisco CP-7960G IP Phones (<$50 each, <$600 total)[/li][/ul]

Could that setup, plus my existing 5 POTS lines do what the old system did, which was practically nothing… When it worked it would sometimes give us voice mail. Would it offer a bunch of cool new features available in Asterisk?

Thanks!

2

I would recommend you go all VoIP. That means:

  • buy new IP phones
  • change the public telefphony provider service from analog lines to VoIP
  • use an Asterisk server (think hard if using an old server hardware is a good idea. New servers that can run Asterisk come really cheap).

Judging from your problem description it won’t be a bad idea to hire a consultant to set up your telepony system.