I just finished setting up asterisk@home, and am looking through the configs, reading up as best i can online, but cant find out the answer to a simple question.
Can we use our regular data/fax modem in the pc to answer our asterisk system? i’m not talking about in a production environment, but id like to get this running at least as a demo to see if we want to invest any cash in this. will i need a SPECIAL card? i see references to zaptel hardware all around, but will a regular modem work? as a demo id just like it to pick up the phone, play a recording, maybe save a voicemail. nothing incredibly major.
I’d like to get a test running by the end of the day today, dont think it should be too much to ask, just want to know if the hardware will work(if its a winmodem, im sure it wont as they rarely work in nix)
If you want to hook to pstn or plain old telephone then yes you will need a card. Seems I read were some have used a pc modem but only certain ones requiring special drivers. see here voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+hardware
You could use a couple of softphones to play with and call from ext to ext and play ith voicemail but will not be able to dial out to anyone unless you have a voip connection to a provider or a connection to the pstn
thanks for the speedy reply rusty. I guess we’ll try to go with softphones for now. Can this simulate an inbound caller? all we really want to do is test it from a customers perspective, and possibly work out any bugs or even setup our recordings while we wait for hardware to arrive. Will a softphone allow us to test it as an inbound caller would, or would we just be able to play with voicemail?
im off to install a softphone thanks again for the quick reply
[quote=“Sili”]thanks for the speedy reply rusty. I guess we’ll try to go with softphones for now. Can this simulate an inbound caller? all we really want to do is test it from a customers perspective, and possibly work out any bugs or even setup our recordings while we wait for hardware to arrive. Will a softphone allow us to test it as an inbound caller would, or would we just be able to play with voicemail?
im off to install a softphone thanks again for the quick reply[/quote]
Try connecting your Asterisk to FWD and then get a free PSTN number from IPKALL.
Yea if you want to play with menu and such like push 1 for sale 2 for billing you could set it up then dail plan so when you dial say 200 it would go to the menu context and play the same mesage as it would if you were calling from outside.
You will need a timing source ztdummy look here
[quote=“rusty”]Yea if you want to play with menu and such like push 1 for sale 2 for billing you could set it up then dail plan so when you dial say 200 it would go to the menu context and play the same mesage as it would if you were calling from outside.
You will need a timing source ztdummy look here
wow! look at all the replies! so much info to go through. right now i just installed a copy of x-lite to try to get a mockup system going somewhat (it’ll be a little hard without having a mic in the office, guess i need to bring one in on monday:))
you guys are the best, here i am guessing when i first made the post that i might not even get one reply by the end of the day!
in any case, going to look through all the info you guys have posted, and see what i can get runnning. x-lite times out when trying to connect to my asterisk server, but im sure its just the loose nut in front of the keyboard(yours truly) in any case, thanks alot guys, your lifesavers
hmm, the login for x-lite seems to keep timing out, no matter how many times i go through the configs…does asterisk@home install a firewall thats blocking the traffic maybe? ive edited the config files like the tutorials say, but cant get anything.
hate to be a nag, im going to keep working on this, if anyone has any ideas please let me know
[quote=“Sili”]hmm, the login for x-lite seems to keep timing out, no matter how many times i go through the configs…does asterisk@home install a firewall thats blocking the traffic maybe? ive edited the config files like the tutorials say, but cant get anything.
hate to be a nag, im going to keep working on this, if anyone has any ideas please let me know
thanks much[/quote]
A@H, to the best of my knowledge (I am an Asterisk core user not an A@H user) does not install a firewall within CentOS. You need to make sure you have your configuration right on each side, more detail here:
thanks again for the quick reply