VOIP help please....

C

cve

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I need some help please. I have fair knowledge of IT and networking, but I have never used VOIP and I am clueless.
I stay on a farm and we have a LAN connected between the offices and the houses. I would like to set up a VOIP system over the existing LAN so that I can phone from the one office to the other or from home to office etc.
This is my main aim.

Further to this if it is in any way possible I would like to connect this to the ISDN lines at the main office, this is the only place that still has telkom lines as they are fibre optic, the rest have been stolen and will not be replaced. I currently have a Ericsson PABX installed and the supplier quoted me R50 000 to change it so that I can add VOIP the way I need it. This is way over my budget. I need only 5 VOIP phones and on the LAN and was wondering if there is not a way to connect individual analogue lines to a device converting it to VOIP which will be cheaper than the abovementioned quote.

Any help will be appreciated.
 
What is your main objective?
Do you want to have free calls between the main office and houses?
Do the houses need to be able to call outside of your network?
Are you wanting to change your entire infrastructure to VoIP?
 
If you're willing to spend some time rolling your own then Asterisk could work for you. Add a Digium B410P and connect the ISDN lines to that. Personally I would throw out the analogue phones and get VoIP phones to talk to Asterisk.

Another option: If you have Fibre in the area for ISDN, what kind of internet connectivity do you have? If it's of a decent quality you could just go hosted PBX and connect your VoIP phones direct.
 
You can use a Quintum BX for that. I know that Diguim also make BRI gateways, but I have not used them.

Just remember, VoIP is not cheap. You can buy cheap Fong-Kong crap, but it will give you issues. For phones, the best price/reliability I found is SNOM 300 phones. The only free part is Asterisk and that will take some time to get used to. As for the hardware, get something reliable, not your old PC that is in need of a dumpster.
 
Rocket-Boy said:
What is your main objective?
Do you want to have free calls between the main office and houses?
Do the houses need to be able to call outside of your network?
Are you wanting to change your entire infrastructure to VoIP?
Click to expand...

My Main objective is to be able to call between offices and homes for free.
The secondary objective would be to use my existing telkom lines and use the VOIP phone in these locations as extentions on PABX.
I Don't want to change the entire infrastructure.
 
Thanks for the suggestions thus far, I will do some reading and see how this can help.
I am sure I will be back with some more questions soon.
 
Nuke said:
Just remember, VoIP is not cheap. You can buy cheap Fong-Kong crap, but it will give you issues. For phones, the best price/reliability I found is SNOM 300 phones. The only free part is Asterisk and that will take some time to get used to. As for the hardware, get something reliable, not your old PC that is in need of a dumpster.
Click to expand...

Some good advice. Snom phones are great quality and it's best to resist the temptation to recycle an old PC.

cve said:
My Main objective is to be able to call between offices and homes for free.
Click to expand...
If the office and the home is all attached to the same network you can easily do that with an Asterisk PBX and some VoIP phones.

cve said:
The secondary objective would be to use my existing telkom lines and use the VOIP phone in these locations as extentions on PABX.
Click to expand...
This will require telephony hardware. If you have good quality internet you can avoid the telephony hardware cost and go SIP.

cve said:
Thanks for the suggestions thus far, I will do some reading and see how this can help.
I am sure I will be back with some more questions soon.
Click to expand...
If you decide you want someone else to take care of the nuts and bolts drop me a PM. We do Asterisk installations & support.
 
Hi,

If you have network connectivity between the houses and offices just get yourself a cheap MyPBX SOHO.

You'll be able to call between the afore mentioned sites for free (via LAN) and if need be, buy the extra module to add PSTN/ISDN etc lines to make calls to the outside.
 
P00HB33R said:
Hi,

If you have network connectivity between the houses and offices just get yourself a cheap MyPBX SOHO.

You'll be able to call between the afore mentioned sites for free (via LAN) and if need be, buy the extra module to add PSTN/ISDN etc lines to make calls to the outside.
Click to expand...

Okay, this works for the first part of my problem, and I understand how I would set it up etc.

For the second part, connecting it to my current analogue lines.
If I look at the MyPBX, not the SOHO, the standard unit. It allows for 16 analogue lines. Now my question is this.
On my standard analogue PABX I have 30 extensions. Would I be able to run some of these extension to the MyPBX analogue inputs?
 
To answer the question previously posted about VOIP over the internet.
We have a internet connection through WIFI, but the service is not reliable.
Our ISDN lines come in through fibre and are very reliable, we have a issue perhaps once a year...
Our contract with Telkom is for another 4 years therefore I want to work with what I have without having to pay any further subscriptions etc...
 
Last edited:
cve said:
Okay, this works for the first part of my problem, and I understand how I would set it up etc.

For the second part, connecting it to my current analogue lines.
If I look at the MyPBX, not the SOHO, the standard unit. It allows for 16 analogue lines. Now my question is this.
On my standard analogue PABX I have 30 extensions. Would I be able to run some of these extension to the MyPBX analogue inputs?
Click to expand...

That depends on the module. The FXO module allows incoming lines from telkom, FXS allows you to plug in plain old analoque phones (that will be used as extensions)
 
You can use any of the 16 ports as either FXS or FXO, dependant on the module you purchase. The units do not come with any built in modules.
 
P00HB33R said:
You can use any of the 16 ports as either FXS or FXO, dependant on the module you purchase. The units do not come with any built in modules.
Click to expand...

The FXO,FXS part I understand, but will it work if I take the lines out from my current analogue PABX into the MYPBX?
Out from one PABX into the PBX?
In other words, if someone calls our office number and the switchboard puts them through to a extension at the other office, it still routes through the original PABX, goes into the MyPBX?
 
To me this is pretty simple , forget all the PBX options , just get the IP phones and get a hosted PBX account . The real issues here is your connectivity to the internet that will drive the VoIP, this is critical ! If you PM me your location i will be able to advise you what services are available in your area .

Paul Colmer
 
Joh dude you lost me there.....

So will the PABX still be handling calls from all the telkom lines, then you want to use the PABX extension as a incoming line on the PBX, and then route that call over the lan?
 
P00HB33R said:
Joh dude you lost me there.....

So will the PABX still be handling calls from all the telkom lines, then you want to use the PABX extension as a incoming line on the PBX, and then route that call over the lan?
Click to expand...

Correct.
 
I suppose you could do that but I wouldnt recommend it. Especially if you are going to use an Automated Attendant on the PBX. But yeah, it should work.

My advice, rather replace the PBX with the PABX completely, and use a mix of VoIP & analogue phones for the extensions.
 
paulcolmer said:
To me this is pretty simple , forget all the PBX options , just get the IP phones and get a hosted PBX account . The real issues here is your connectivity to the internet that will drive the VoIP, this is critical ! If you PM me your location i will be able to advise you what services are available in your area .

Paul Colmer
Click to expand...

As I said, I am in a contract with Telkom for 4 more years. The ISDN lines are very reliable, we do not have a local reliable, financially viable, internet option yet. I have tested most of them.
 
Ok , all Telkom lines are cancelled , we port the numbers to a VoIP provider , just plug IP phones into the LAN and all the PBX functionality is driven by the provider in the cloud , this is why the connectivity to the internet is important .
 
P00HB33R said:
I suppose you could do that but I wouldnt recommend it. Especially if you are going to use an Automated Attendant on the PBX. But yeah, it should work.

My advice, rather replace the PBX with the PABX completely, and use a mix of VoIP & analogue phones for the extensions.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice gents...
 
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