Connecting your Telkom line to the world
Your question has multiple parts.
- How to physically connect your line to your network
- How to connect you now network based telkom call through the network to some kind of exit point (PC or other device)
- What does Asterisk do and what are the alternatives
- What are the things you can do once you have brought Telkom onto your network
- Do you really need Telkom
1. How to physically connect your line to your network
The thing you need is a piece of hardware called a PSTN Gateway. This would at a minimum have a telephone jack (RJ11) on it and it would also have a network jack (RJ45). IT would have some built in software that will allow it to act very much like your ADSL router in that it will convert the voice passing thru the RJ 11 jack into data and route it thru the RJ 45 jack - and vice versa.
I use a Linksys SPA2102 since I have 2 telephone lines, but you could use the Linksys SPA 3102 which only uses 1 telkom line. These are very cheap devices (between R650 and R900). You can even get up to 8 Telkom lines into a device like this.
2. Connecting your now network based telkom call through the network to some kind of exit point
There are several ways that you can pick up the call once it has entered your network.
- You could use a USB phone (you can pick them up on eBay, Incredible Connection, Makro or several other places
- You can use an external microphone and speaker (ala Skype)
- You can use a phone specifically designed for this - called an IP phone
- You can use your own normal phone, plugged into some kind of converter that sits between your phone and the network
The really big Gotcha here is that there must be some kind of sofware program here handling this new kind of data on your network, and this is where the discussion about Asterisk and others come in.
3. What does Asterisk do and what are the alternatives
Asterisk, like Skype, is a system that "interprets" the Voice signal and kinda blasts it across the IP network (hence the name Voice Over IP - or VoIP) so that a client piece of software sitting on either an IP phone or as a "SoftPhone" application on either your desktop PC, your laptop or your 3G cellphone can pick up the call.
The fact that a client piece of software is required is a dead give away for the fact that you also need a Server piece of software - which is what Asterisk is. I personally use 3CX because it work very welll in the Windows environment. Other options are Cisco's Call Manager, Microsoft's Office Communications Server and a host of others that you will hear about on this forum. 3CX for a small home environment is free for up to 5 lines/extensions.
Asterisk also works under WIndows, but almost everyone that talks Asterisk eventually talks Linux as the platform. You can run 3CX under Windows XP quite comfortably and it has several really cool features for a very low cost (free for a small implementation).
You can also use Skype's PAM IP PBX solutions - but there is no support in South Africa.
Microsoft's OCS is a little more expensive, but there are several service providers that can host a service for you at a very low cost.
The bottom line is that once you have brought the PSTN line into your network you will start needing some kind of software that will pick it up from your Gateway and serve it across your internal network to your client devices.
5. What are the things you can do once you have brought Telkom onto your network
Well, once you have brought you telephone line onto your network, with the right server software, you can:
- Transfer calls between your workstations
- Blast the PSTN call right back out onto the internet to an IP address that you are at - anywhere in the world (Really Cool ne
)
- Integrate your telephone calls into MS Outlook so that you can right click on a contact and dial the person straight from there
- Keep track of all incoming and outgoing calls made to any person in your contact database
- Appear to be a large company while investing small on your PBX and network infrastructure
There are a host of other benefits as well - the biggest being that you can become completely independent from Telkom while droppng your total Telecomms costs.
6. Do you really need Telkom
Well, here's the big question then isn't it?
The point is that once you have brought your PSTN line onto your network you will want anyone on your network to also make outgoing calls.
Well, you can make out going calls back through Telkom - or not.
I use an 087 telephone number - which is a SIP number. For more on 087 numbers please search the forum - there are several discussions about this.
In short, you can get an 087 telephone number from 1 type of service provider in the same way that you can get an 083 number (typically MTN), an 082 number (typically Vodacom) or any other number from one of many service providers.
In order to use an 087 number you NEED internet access.
I am assuming that you are posting your question in this forum because you already have ADSL or some other broadband connection.
Well, I take Telkom's 384k ADSL line with a 3GB cap and say thank you nicely - because at this rate they are the cheapest still (right there is yet another rant waiting from me on another date :twisted: ). This costs me R389 inclusive of line rental and it is on a month to month contract. I supply my own ADSL router and it is a self install. Nobody even knows the telephone number of this ADSL line and we make no phone calls out of it - so my total Telkom bill per month is fixed at R389 - schweet
Next, I have a couple of 087 numbers and a couple of Waya Waya land-line numbers. The Waya Waya telephones allow for incoming calls on the PSTN network at a fixed R120 per annum. The 087 numbers cost me nothing from a line rental per month.
The Waya Waya numbers enter my network through my SPA 2102, the 087 number enter via the internet.
All lines are then intercepted via 3CX.
I deposit money into my 087 numbers for phone calls that I can make and I can recieve my 087 phone calls from anywhere that I have internet access.
So, bottom line ?
If you cannot get reliable internet access from your cell phone provider or Neotel, then you need Telkom for a fixed monthly rate of a maximum of R389 for their internet access. Other than that you have no need for Telkom at all.
You may even, after a bit of thought, realise that you do not really need to even bring the PSTN line onto your network - you could stick to the 087 numbers only - in which case the PSTN gateway may not even be needed.
In closing:
I reckon the very fact that you have asked the question means that you are about to embark on a pretty hair raising journey and I suspect that we are going to see a lot of "PLEASE HELP ME" kind of posts from you as you move forward.
This body of knowledge has grown up quite a bit over the last 6 years and there is a lot of support available.
It would be great if you were to document your journey as a kind of running commentary here and we could possibly all help or learn from that journey too.
Geluk boet - this is going to be an interesting ride.
