[Leaplist] Askerisk - PBX

[Kevin Anderson]

>1.  Does Askerisk work with any of the free standing Skype or Vonage
>phone modems?  I know how to program the Linksys Vonage system to use
>any service and not be locked into the Vonage trap.

Skype is REALLY ugly to use, but I have Vonage connecting to Asterisk for both Business and home use right now.  Not sure what Vonage trap you're referring to.  At $40 a month for all I can eat, it's a trap I rather enjoy.  Note that you can only use vonage's soft phones for your PBX, not the main line.


>But, a listing of basic hardware is a nice asset.

I have a p4-1700 w 2G of RAM running VMware with 4 vmservers on it.  One is A at H.  Works fine.  I'd say anything P3 or better with 256M of RAM will be fine.

>2. Can a home system have 4 phones, through pre-wired wall jacks, on the
>system?

Yes, You'll want an adapter to connect to normal phones. Personally, I'd go with VOIP phones so you can connect them wirelessly, or wired.

>3. How do the phone numbers get selected or assigned in this system?

Incoming numbers are called DIDs.  They are usually handled seperate from the VoIP lines themselves, but in POTS systems you likely see them as identical.  My system allows inbound VoIP calls to be directed to the auto attendent, and they're routed from there.  Different inbound lines go to different auto attendents.

I'd recommend learning with softphones.  Zoiper is nice because it'll work with IAX rather than just SIP.  SIP works fine but hates NAT firewalls.  IAX is easily handled through firewalls, and will rapidly replace SIP I suspect.  You'll notice that Cisco Phones are REALLY nice.  They're also very expensive, and very difficult to configure.  Look at Polycom.  Personally, I like using a softphone most of the time since I can use it anywhere which is really important to me at the moment.

Kev.