Transitioning Asterisk deployments

My business is currently using a Fonality-based deployment of Asterisk. I recently took over the IT department and I am not liking the lack of configuration or logging options. I also can’t seem to connect any kind of SIP client in a manner which allows it to receive calls. This does not include our Polycom phones, which work fine.

Without losing our phone service, I would like to be able to wipe the software on the server and start over. Yes, I know it won’t work while I’m changing the software. I was considering an AsteriskNow deployment because it includes a GUI and seems to give full control to the administrator. I do not have any experience running or setting up an IP phone system, but it seems fairly easy from my attempts to set up a test server on my laptop. I was never able to connect to the server, but I suspect that had something to do with Ubuntu running from a USB stick and frequently freezing.

I only suspect some small degree of partnership between Fonality and Nextiva from looking at our user name for the Nextiva trunk. Are they partners, and would there be any impact on our service if we stopped using Fonality’s software to connect to Nextiva’s trunk?

Is AsteriskNow a good choice for my small business to use for our phone system?

Is there an easy way to save the configurations, or should I just start over? We only have a couple dozen phones, or so.

I was checking Nextiva website and i don’t think could be an small degree of partnership between Fonality and Nextiva . You wont have any problem for setup a sip trunking connection between Nextiva and Asterisk. And if so you could contact their tech support Dept in order that they provide you the Asterisk configuration for the trunk settings.

Regarding if AsteriskNow it is a good solution for

small business it depends of the business needs, But there are many good Asterisk GUI Project ( Freepbx Distro, Elastix).

My suggestion is that start your System from Scratch, at the beginning could be a headache, but at the end you will learn a lot and will gain the experience and knowledge for have the full control of your telephony system.

Trixbox appears to be a dead product. I can’t imagine Fonality has any partnerships requiring its use.