«

Hi,

I must admit that I am very new to voice over IP and h.323 in particular.
My boss asked me though, to have a look for a solution for our telephony
system.


Ideally this would be a certain number of normal table-phones all
connecting to a server via IP (h.323?). This server would then manage the
packets and route them out to the normal telephone-network via an
ISDN-Card.

Is there any open source software that does that? We are a software
company ourselves, so setting it up as soon as we know what we need and
have a manual for it wouldn't be the problem.
I just find it hard at the moment to get a grip on what exactly we want.

I would be really grateful if somebody here could help me out? A good link
would do for starters.

Cheers,

Julian

You may want to look at Asterisk for your solution. You can use regular
phones connected to a channel bank and have the channel bank connected to a
PRI or T1 interface card sitting in a Linux box. You can also have IP phones
and softphones hang off the linux box as extensions with voicemail and
etceteras. Do you currently have a budget? How many simultaneous calls do
you think you need to handle at any given time? Have you picked out a VoIP
carrier?

--
Greg Merriweather
The NuFone Network

519-251-8225 x 3000
IM:


"Julian Finn" <> wrote in message
news...
> Hi,
>
> I must admit that I am very new to voice over IP and h.323 in particular.
> My boss asked me though, to have a look for a solution for our telephony
> system.
>
>
> Ideally this would be a certain number of normal table-phones all
> connecting to a server via IP (h.323?). This server would then manage the
> packets and route them out to the normal telephone-network via an
> ISDN-Card.
>
> Is there any open source software that does that? We are a software
> company ourselves, so setting it up as soon as we know what we need and
> have a manual for it wouldn't be the problem.
> I just find it hard at the moment to get a grip on what exactly we want.
>
> I would be really grateful if somebody here could help me out? A good link
> would do for starters.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Julian

On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:31:41 -0500, shido wrote:

> You may want to look at Asterisk for your solution. You can use regular
> phones connected to a channel bank and have the channel bank connected to a
> PRI or T1 interface card sitting in a Linux box. You can also have IP phones
> and softphones hang off the linux box as extensions with voicemail and
> etceteras. Do you currently have a budget? How many simultaneous calls do
> you think you need to handle at any given time? Have you picked out a VoIP
> carrier?

sorry, I think you misundestood me.
I am looking for the solution voice-over-IP internally, connecting to a
normal phone line for everything outside the office.
So the server would be a gateway between the IP-Phones and the normal
ISDN-Network.

Budget? Well, we would like to keep it as low as possible. Basically it
is just for a small office with 8 people.

But thanks for the asterisk-tip. maybe it can help me.

cheers,

Julian

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 01:49:56 +0100, Julian Finn
<> wrote:

>On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:31:41 -0500, shido wrote:
>
>> You may want to look at Asterisk for your solution. You can use regular
>> phones connected to a channel bank and have the channel bank connected to a
>> PRI or T1 interface card sitting in a Linux box. You can also have IP phones
>> and softphones hang off the linux box as extensions with voicemail and
>> etceteras. Do you currently have a budget? How many simultaneous calls do
>> you think you need to handle at any given time? Have you picked out a VoIP
>> carrier?
>
>sorry, I think you misundestood me.
>I am looking for the solution voice-over-IP internally, connecting to a
>normal phone line for everything outside the office.
>So the server would be a gateway between the IP-Phones and the normal
>ISDN-Network.
>
>Budget? Well, we would like to keep it as low as possible. Basically it
>is just for a small office with 8 people.
>
>But thanks for the asterisk-tip. maybe it can help me.
>
>cheers,
>
>Julian


Just buy a mini-pbx and be done with it. VOIP doesn't really add much
in the way of features for such a small deployment.

-Chris

Hi Julian,

Since you work at a software company, you know the time and effort it
takes to produce a production quality piece of software. Please
consider the cost of "doing it yourself" vs buying an off the shelf
device.

Just because the source code is free doesn't mean that your project
will be inexpensive.

If you want open source software, there's plenty of it. Please
remember that the companies "selling" open source are often actually
selling maintenance and support, but the companies licensing
proprietary software have made their software easy to use so you don't
need a lot of support (well, some of them have done this).
MonteVista, Red Hat, TimeSys and other Linux companies all sell
support for Linux. What is their motivation to make Linux easier to
use?

If you want to add an IP PBX, there a re a number of vendors,
including Avaya, Nortel, and Cisco. I suggest you check with your
server vendor to see if they have VoIP available. You should also
check with them to see if your server has (or needs) some sort of QOS
enforcement for VoIP..

If you just want a cheap PBX, there are a number of solutions out
there, like http://www.talkswitch.com/.

Hank



On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:05:04 +0100, Julian Finn
<> wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I must admit that I am very new to voice over IP and h.323 in particular.
>My boss asked me though, to have a look for a solution for our telephony
>system.
>
>
>Ideally this would be a certain number of normal table-phones all
>connecting to a server via IP (h.323?). This server would then manage the
>packets and route them out to the normal telephone-network via an
>ISDN-Card.
>
>Is there any open source software that does that? We are a software
>company ourselves, so setting it up as soon as we know what we need and
>have a manual for it wouldn't be the problem.
>I just find it hard at the moment to get a grip on what exactly we want.
>
>I would be really grateful if somebody here could help me out? A good link
>would do for starters.
>
>Cheers,
>
>Julian

----------------
Hank Karl Eastern Regional Manager
+1 (203)207-0047 www.nine-9s.com


Representing:
http://www.telchemy.com/ VQmon VoIP Quality Monitoring Software for OEMs
http://www.telesoft-intl.com/ ISDN, T1 RBS, E1 R2 CAS, Frame Relay, ML-PPP, X.25, ...
http://www.agoralabs.com/ elemedia H.323, Video Codecs, Audio Codecs
http://www.tntss.com/ dynamicsoft SIP stack

Julian Finn wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I must admit that I am very new to voice over IP and h.323 in particular.
> My boss asked me though, to have a look for a solution for our telephony
> system.
>
>
> Ideally this would be a certain number of normal table-phones all
> connecting to a server via IP (h.323?). This server would then manage the
> packets and route them out to the normal telephone-network via an
> ISDN-Card.
>
> Is there any open source software that does that? We are a software
> company ourselves, so setting it up as soon as we know what we need and
> have a manual for it wouldn't be the problem.
> I just find it hard at the moment to get a grip on what exactly we want.
>
> I would be really grateful if somebody here could help me out? A good link
> would do for starters.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Julian

What you want is a gateway->PSTN box or more precisely it is called an FXO
(Foreign Exchange Office) device. That way, anyone on your network or even
across Internet can access to a CO line to call out. An inexpensive way to
save toll calls. You certainly can get more information regarding an FXO
and/or FXS support on asterisks (http://www.asterisk.org). Also, there may
be some other software development that may interest you:

http://www.OpenH323.org
http://www.GnuGK.org
http://www.fobbit.net <==== This is for VoIPBlaster (FXS) devices

I hope that helps you to get started.

--
root/administrator

You can still use Asterisk and use voip internally. All 8 can have voicemail
and dial each other as extensions using softphones, regular phones, ip
phones, or a mix of all the above.

--
Greg Merriweather
The NuFone Network

519-251-8225 x 3000
IM:

"Julian Finn" <> wrote in message
news...
> On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 13:31:41 -0500, shido wrote:
>
> > You may want to look at Asterisk for your solution. You can use regular
> > phones connected to a channel bank and have the channel bank connected
to a
> > PRI or T1 interface card sitting in a Linux box. You can also have IP
phones
> > and softphones hang off the linux box as extensions with voicemail and
> > etceteras. Do you currently have a budget? How many simultaneous calls
do
> > you think you need to handle at any given time? Have you picked out a
VoIP
> > carrier?
>
> sorry, I think you misundestood me.
> I am looking for the solution voice-over-IP internally, connecting to a
> normal phone line for everything outside the office.
> So the server would be a gateway between the IP-Phones and the normal
> ISDN-Network.
>
> Budget? Well, we would like to keep it as low as possible. Basically it
> is just for a small office with 8 people.
>
> But thanks for the asterisk-tip. maybe it can help me.
>
> cheers,
>
> Julian
>

On Thu, 30 Oct 2003 15:35:29 GMT, Hank Karl wrote in
news::

> If you just want a cheap PBX, there are a number of
> solutions out there, like http://www.talkswitch.com/.
>

I've been using their Concero Switchboards for, must be, at least
8-years. They're really neat. I now have it hooked-up to a Vonage
line; seems to be a good combination.