Question regarding Asterix, analog lines and network phones

Hello all,

I am in the process of getting to know asterix and evaluate it for our internal use. Currently we use an internal panasonic pabx with standard panasonic phones.

What I would eventually like to acheive is to do away with the panasonic, replacing it with an Asterisknow box. I’m pretty certain I can do what I’m thinking but would just like to run it past you guys with more in depth Asterisk knowledge.

What the new system will comprise of, is a 4 port digium analog card to accomodate our existing lines and number. I would then like to replace all internal panasonic/analog phones with network/ip phones and still be able to use the analog lines with the ip phones, thereby retaining our analog lines and number but converting our internal phone system to network based.

I’m I right in assuming it is possible? I’ve not delved in too deeply yet, but would it be a case (roughly) of configuring the card and the analog lines, and then assigning them to the relevant users created?

Is it as easy as that, or do I need more hardware? I have read around and I don’t see any specifc mention of using ip phones over analog lines with asterisk, it looks like it can, but I could do with some confirmation.

Please help clarify for me. (assuming it made sense. :confused: )

:blush:
Thanks

Confirmed.

You can use analog lines to communicate with the outside world while using IP phone inside your office. You’d do just as you said, get a 4 port Digium analog card.

The Trixbox package makes installing everything easier and is probably the route you want to take. It allows mapping analog lines to internal extensions. (You can do the same thing with vanilla Asterisk but it’s a bit less intuitive.)

I am not sure on this one as i have not played with it yet, but couldn’t Asterisk NOW also be useful for this? and it does use the latest version of Asterisk which has extra features in it that can mimic a PABX style system, TrixBox is damn good, but i am not sure if it can cater to all the functions of the latest Asterisk version.

Alternatively as you said he could always look at a Vanilla version of * and configure it to exactly how he wants it too work.

Either solution though IMO can do what he wants and with relative ease if you put a little time to it.

Just a thought anyway :wink:

Cheers,

David.

I’ve not used AsteriskNow but I’m pretty darn sure it’s still in beta. Take a look at the latest features to see if they are something you need (Shared Line Appearance, GoogleTalk integration, IMAP voicemail, etc.) Otherwise the 1.2 version is safer.

Vanilla Asterisk is the way to go if you want to learn Asterisk’s deep dark secrets and it’s the way I started. You’ll definitely come to understand the system much better but it will take a long time because it’s not that easy.

I’m probably being a smartass here… but… you mention hardware as in the phones and digium card, but no mention of the server itself.

You also need a server.

You probably understand that, but I just wanted to make sure.

Thanks for the replies guys. As for the last response, yes, I do know we need a server to actually run the Asterisk software. :stuck_out_tongue:

In terms of AsteriskNow vs Trixbox, I’ve not as yet looked at trixbox, but figure that since AsteriskNow is sponsored (?) by digium this is probably the best way to go. What is AsteriskNow lacking that trixbox has in order to acheive what I posted above?

In AsteriskNOW, isn’t it just a case, of configuring the digium card, configuring incoming and outgoing dialing rules, and assigning relevant phone stations accordingly?

Is the mapping of Analog lines not possible yet in AsteriskNow? Because I don’t have the physical card as yet, I’m only working essesntially on an internal SIP phone setup for testing, so certain features I can’t test or validate.

In Terms of the digium hardware am I right in assuming I only need a 4 port FXO card? Since I’m planning on using IP phones, I don’t need anything FXS related? Is that correct?

Thanks for the help.