[kwlug-disc] voip questions

[Raul Suarez]

----- Original Message ----
From: Jon Thiele <jon at plexnet.com>
>>What kind of hardware am I looking at if I want my Asterisk box to use all
>>the current analog phones in my home?
>>Anyone local sell this?

>>Can I use this on a Virtual Box VM?


>I'm in the same boat.  I have a box sitting here with a telephony card and a
>number of different versions of Asterisk on it - but never finding the 8 (or
>is that 80...) hours of time I'd need to get this running...  I'd love it
>if KWLUG (or someone) would put on a quick start type of presentation...

I was on the same boat recently, thinking that it would require a big time 
investment.

I hear John and Kiwi mention the endless options available on VoIP. Those are 
prefectly valid concerns for business users.

I found that for home usage, the set-up and configuration is very simple and can 
be explained as such.

That to me is the entry level talk. A good starting point to have people up and 
running. If they want to take it further they will at least have a working 
system to experiment and learn.

Following Kiwi's format, Here are the stages I followed:

$0 investment; Total time 30 minutes to 1 hour (depending on how fast you are)
- Install debian in a virtual or an available computer (if it is a virtual 
ensure you configure the network properly)
- Install Asterisk
- Install softphone applications in at least one device (e.g Ekiga in a Linux 
desktop will do or CSIPSimple in an Android phone)
- Configure one or two extensions in Asterisk with a very basic dialplan
- Configure the softphone as an extension
- Call the "echo" extension and verify that things are working.

After that you can grow up configuring more softphone extensions. $0 investment.

Once you feel comfortable you can:
- Buy an ATA (PAT2T, $60 at canada computers) 
- Get a local DID (phone number) $25 to $50 deposit depending on the provider.
- Configure your ATA and DID. This step should take from afew minutes to 1 hour

and you have a working phone home system. Nothing else is needed.

From there you can then create more complex dialplans if you want e.g. during 
business hours transfer calls to your office or add IVR menues or send callers 
to voicemail after 11:00 PM. or whatever you fancy.