Wanted: cheapest way to put a cordless phone on each desk

Asterisk Asterisk Support
1

I am running Asterisk @ Home 2.7 and have a single ATA. So far it works great with my cordless phone. I want to use Asterisk to provide an extension for me, wife, and kids. This will be for home use.
I have an X100P clone for PSTN (911 and outgoing local) and will sign up with Telasip for incoming and outgoing long distance calls.

I want to add three more extensions and I want to put a cordless phone on each desktop next to the PCs.

Wife/kids all have PCs running Windows XP. Kids are wired to the LAN, wife’s machine is wireless, dropping a wire to her desk will be a pain. Planning to move soon so all desktops may be wireless soon.

Option 1: Buy three more ATAs. $45 each (URL below). Downside, needs CAT5 and is a little more than I’d like to spend per desktop.

Option 2: Find some sort of USB-based ATAs and plug them into the PCs. I have found a bunch of devices on Ebay that will allow me to use a regular phone with Skype. I’m not sure they they’ll work with Asterisk/SIP. Looks like I can get them for $25 each with shipping.
Downside, Not sure that running VOIP over wlan is a good idea. Will be using 5.8Ghz phones. How well will this work assuming a good wlan connection?

With the cheap ATA and a $20 wireless phone I’m looking at $65 per seat. If possible I’d like to match or beat that price.

I’ve considered a single wireless phone base and multiple extensions. This won’t give each phone it’s own extension so that’s not going to work for me.

Is there an ATA that I can connect to my XP-based desktops and works with Asterisk/SIP, that does not cost too much? Or is there another cheap/easy option that I am missing? I don’t really want to mess with SIP phones. Wireless SIP is still too expensive and primative. Nobody in my house wants a wired phone.

Here’s the URL for the ebay store with the $45 ATA. Easy to setup with Asterisk and SIP. Works great for me.
http://stores.ebay.com/VoIP-AsteriskPBX-Linux-N-More
Look for ‘generic ATA’.

2

If cost is that big a deal, why not use a free soft phone like xten? It’s not wireless, but all you need is a headset to your pc.

3

None of us want to be wired to the desktop. Wireless headsets are generally more expensive than wireless phones.

I have been playing with a bluetooth headset paired with a bluetooth dongle on my laptop and X-ten as a softphone. Even with wlan it works fine. Not cost effective to deploy 3 more of these and not wife-friendly, but it works ok. One problem is you have to be wearing the headset to hear the phone ring.

4

Maybe what you want to do is buy 3 ATA’a and 3 single handset cordless phones.

You’d setup the ATA’s and the cordless handset in your “network room” and have a remote charger for each handset in the user location.

That should come to about $65 per station. (Assuming about $20 per cordless phone.)

You wouldn’t need to put the ATA at the work station, so no wiring necessary.

Alternatively, you could invest in a TDM400 board full of FXS cards, and just use regular phones, and phone wiring, where possible and cordless phones when necessary.

Personally, I’d go for the TDM400 board. It would give you the closest thing to true PBX extension functionality, while still using analog stations.

5

That digium card will push me over the budget.

I like the idea of putting all of the ATAs in my NOC (spare bedroom full of computers and network junk).

Can anyone recommend a decent cordless phone with a remote charger?

6

You can get dual-port ATA for cheap, check out the Grandstream section at www.discountvoipoutlet.com - I have yet to use these devices (currently on order for a test VoIP install at my office) so I don’t offer a recommendation, but, they’re cheap.

[quote=“darkgumby”]I am running Asterisk @ Home 2.7 and have a single ATA. So far it works great with my cordless phone. I want to use Asterisk to provide an extension for me, wife, and kids. This will be for home use.
I have an X100P clone for PSTN (911 and outgoing local) and will sign up with Telasip for incoming and outgoing long distance calls.

I want to add three more extensions and I want to put a cordless phone on each desktop next to the PCs.

Wife/kids all have PCs running Windows XP. Kids are wired to the LAN, wife’s machine is wireless, dropping a wire to her desk will be a pain. Planning to move soon so all desktops may be wireless soon.

Option 1: Buy three more ATAs. $45 each (URL below). Downside, needs CAT5 and is a little more than I’d like to spend per desktop.

Option 2: Find some sort of USB-based ATAs and plug them into the PCs. I have found a bunch of devices on Ebay that will allow me to use a regular phone with Skype. I’m not sure they they’ll work with Asterisk/SIP. Looks like I can get them for $25 each with shipping.
Downside, Not sure that running VOIP over wlan is a good idea. Will be using 5.8Ghz phones. How well will this work assuming a good wlan connection?

With the cheap ATA and a $20 wireless phone I’m looking at $65 per seat. If possible I’d like to match or beat that price.

I’ve considered a single wireless phone base and multiple extensions. This won’t give each phone it’s own extension so that’s not going to work for me.

Is there an ATA that I can connect to my XP-based desktops and works with Asterisk/SIP, that does not cost too much? Or is there another cheap/easy option that I am missing? I don’t really want to mess with SIP phones. Wireless SIP is still too expensive and primative. Nobody in my house wants a wired phone.

Here’s the URL for the ebay store with the $45 ATA. Easy to setup with Asterisk and SIP. Works great for me.
http://stores.ebay.com/VoIP-AsteriskPBX-Linux-N-More
Look for ‘generic ATA’.[/quote]

7

You could allways get something like http://www.linksys.com/servlet/Satellite?c=L_Product_C2&childpagename=US%2FLayout&cid=1117044308483&pagename=Linksys%2FCommon%2FVisitorWrapper
Its a box for connecting two telephones to Asterisk or just about any VOIP provider, i have one and it works great! There are many companies that make simular thinks.

8

The Linksys PAP2 works great! Just be carefull when purchasing them. Most of them are locked into Vonage. You can find unlocked ones on ebay, but if you do a factory reset, they revert back to Vonage and locked again. There are legitemately unlocked units out there, and they work great. Just be carefull.

9

I’m using the ‘generic ata’ that I link to above. So far it works great and I don’t have to worry about unlocking it. Soon I’ll get three more, one for each desktop.