Batboard

Thinking about playing with VoIP at the house. Wouldn't mind picking up a nice Cicso phone that could support POTS as well (if possible). What would I need to get things rolling at the house, then maybe expand to a small network or server for some friends? Will I have to find one of those ooper expensive Cisco VoIP servers or whats out there? Pretty new to this other than the SIP Phone from the BATphone days..

cisco is very expensive with their commercial gear as well as VOIP. You might want to consider a different kind of phone other than cisco, unless you got money to throw around. They're very configurable like most cisco gear and you can use whatever equipment codecs you want, given they're supported. I use Asterisk open source linux software as a voip server for personal applications with a few AVAya phones to talk. Really works well, sounds better than a standard telephone, and its free! If you don't wanna jump in so quickly, you can get an adapter that will allow a standard phone to operate as a voip phone. This is what the linksys routers for Vonage do however they are unlocked and allow configuration of SIP and codecs, etc. If you need any help with Voip , email or PM me i'll be glad to help in anyway i can.

If you want a Cisco phone, make sure you get one that definitely has SIP firmware, otherwise you'll have a :o of a time getting it running with Asterisk, unless you have a Cisco support contract.

Most Cisco phones come from the factory configured for SCCP, a Cisco proprietary protocol used with CallManager. Last I checked, Asterisk's support for SCCP sucked.

If you're willing to look at other phones, I think Polycom's phones are brilliant.

I used Polycom SoundPoint IP phones at the old Waltel global command center, as well as a few Sipura ATAs for the analog stuff. The Polycoms worked great with one exception: the speaker was just too quiet to make it a great speakerphone. Maybe they've fixed that by now. You should stay away from the Ciscos for the reasons mentioned above. The PBX was Asterisk with some Digium FXO cards. Phone service was through SBC and Voicepulse Connect.

The bare minimums to get started yourself are a computer running Linux and Asterisk (anything >500MHz will be OK to start) and a SIP phone or two. If you want to interface with your outside POTS lines, then you'll need some FXO cards. If you want to make and receive calls over the Internet, then you'll need service from one of the many IAX2 service providers that support Asterisk such as Voicepulse Connect.

You can do some really neat stuff with the Asterisk software and its various programming facilities such as database interfacing, "press 2 to be connected to my cell phone", etc.

Let me know if you have any questions getting stuff set up.

Jeff

While we're on the subject, has anyone played with Nero SIPPStar?

I'm well aware of Asterisk and its capabilities, but I am not a Linux guy at all. I bought an Alpha GU server for cheap to run it on, but my local Linux guy fell through so I was going to slap Windows NT on it and call it good. Unfortunately, it would appear that available-to-public Windows VoIP software is somewhat lacking, aside from the Nero product.

Looks like the same Nero that makes the CD burning software. The CD software is good, but I don't know about the PBX software. I had never heard of until today.

Do you not like Linux, or have you just never used it? I think you'll be much happier with the Asterisk product since it has a huge support base and tons of documentation available.

Jeff

I have no beef at all against Linux, just that the ability to compile Linux code vastly exceeds my meager unl33t sk1llz. Windows installations are pretty straightforward and I have some experience there, so I'd like to go that route.

Otaku, check into http://www.trixbox.org/

This is the project that was formerly known as Asterisk@Home. It is a distro that already has * complied on install-- all you have to do is configure the extensions and dialplan to work with your gear. I believe it has a decent GUI to do some of that stuff. I haven't done much with * myself, but I have access to two * gurus that make our phone system at work do its thing.

http://www.voip-info.org/ is also *the* jumping-off point for anyone else interested in VOIP-type stuff.

-b-

Trixbox (formerly asterisk@home) is a great way to start.. The only things to be aware of are:
1. The distributed ISO image only supports x86 type platforms.
2. the ISO image assumes that the machine it is being installed on is being 100% dedicated to the task, and will format any and all disks attached to the system. If you just want to install it on a spare disk to play with, make sure to unplug all other disks while installing, or you may be in for a nasty surprise.

cisco 7912's with SIP firmware are available on ebay for ~$100 or so.. , others like the 7940/7960 are a bit more.

techie wrote:1. The distributed ISO image only supports x86 type platforms.

Well, so much for that. My target machine runs an Alpha processor.