VoIP Suppliers

[Gatt]

We are currently looking at what would be involved in breaking away from our LEA with regards to ICT support since they are pretty much useless.

The one area we're not so sure on is where to go for VoIP support.

We're currently using Cisco IP phones (7960's i think).

Anyone got any recommendations?

[CyberNerd]

Digium provide support for asterisk, the leading OSS telecomunications platform. http://www.digium.com/en/services/su...aintenance.php

http://www.asterisk.org/

[Gatt]

Thank - will look into that on Monday

[plexer]

Is it just the phones you have? what backend system do they connect to?

Ben

[Gatt]

Cisco Call Maneger I think. not overly sure - its all controlled by the LEA - there is a local server, but no idea what the software is

[plexer]

Ok well if you want to go away from the LEA then presumably you lease the equipment of them at the moment or does the school own it?

If you own the local server and it is a callmanager server this is based on a heavily customised windows 2000 server.

If you wanted to go your own route and you own the phones then you would need to upload sip firmware to them and run an internal asterisk server however it's not too clear on where you stand legally unlocking cisco phones as to buy them to use with sip you have to buy a sip licence for them which isn't cheap either.

Otherwise you would be looking at buying new sip phones and running an asterisk server.

Depending on how you want to go about this and how you currently have it setup you have numerous options, for instance does your current voip setup allow you to make calls to normal numbers via your analogue pbx if you have one?

Xorcom rapid asterisk install is a good one and there is also trixbox which is the latest incarnation of asterisk@home.

Ben

[Gatt]

OK this has beenm on the back burner for a while, but now built an A@H box, but need to know what phones u guys would recommend to run on it

Not gonna keep the Cisco phones as they technically belong to the LEA..

[plexer]

If you want cheap desktop phones have a look at the grandstream ones and for cheap wifi ones have a look at the T1000 from http://www.mobiboo.com/tovo/index.html

Ben

[Geoff]

don't forget you can also get softphones and Cat5 to POTS converters.

[Gatt]

The grandstream ones look good - nice and cheap too - most of them would be desktop ones, though may consider getting some cordless as well.. if it can be done in this school (WiFi wasn't a great success :-S

[Geoff]

As long as you have QoS for VoIP traffic it shouldn't be to big of an issue.

[Gatt]

actually scrap that about WiFi - forgetting we have mobiles for that :?
Main thing is a decent Asterisk Box & compat phones.

Will also need those Zaptel card thingimajig doodah's too

[plexer]

You may have mobiles but if you supplemented or replaced these with wifi voip then you wouldn't incur the call charges.

I'm looking at getting a Nokia E60 for me so that I have gsm and wifi capability and some T1000's for others.

Will be looking at vlanning a new ssid on my HP wap's and vlanning the switches to the astersik box too.

Ben

[localzuk]

I have been told that the grandstream are quite low in terms of build quality. If you want something a bit 'tougher' have a look at phones by Snom - German engineering rather than Chinese IIRC.

If you have mobiles, you should look at one of these. Then, with careful negotiation with a mobile company you could end up with free wireless calls between staff mobiles and the school phone system.

[plexer]

Digium have released their own easy to install distro called AstersikNow:

http://www.asterisknow.org/support

Ben