Hi All!
I am switching my company to Asterisk. Here’s a little background on our current setup, and where we’re going.
CURRENTLY - MAIN OFFICE
Our Columbus of 50 people is equipped with a Comdial FXT, which we want to keep for the time being, as our budget does not allow replacing all of the proprietary Comdial phones at this time. We have 1 PRI with 6 channels dedicated for Internet access, 54 DIDs and 1 T1 VoIP solution that handles our long distance calls. Of the 50 people in this office, 11 are telemarketers and we plan on adding many more. So, I’m thinking we’ll probably want some pretty slick call center features, and eventually a predictive dialer.
NEAR FUTURE
In February, we’re opening an office of 50 people in Tampa. We don’t plan on any further growth in this office.
BEYOND NEAR FUTURE
Our CEO plan’s on expanding our footprint by opening two branches in a different state every year.
MY BASIC QUESTIONS
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Can I drop Asterisk between our current Comdial PBX and our IAD? If so, can we use this setup to gradually attach VoIP phones to the Asterisk PBX, while coexisting with the Comdial phones?
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Should I have a dedicated pipe between the Ohio and Florida offices? Or can I get away with connecting the PBXs through a VPN?
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I want to have PSTN failover at both locations, so, would it be possible to get a PRI with all channels dedicated to voice, which will make all channels available to data when there are no calls being made? If there is such an option, can Asterisk be configured to transparently switch from VoIP to the PSTN on the same PRI in the event the Internet is not available?
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Lastly, what are the memory and processor requirements I should be figuring for each Asterisk server?
I hope all of the above makes sense. I greatly appreciate any suggestions anyone has to make!