An interesting idea

I had our MFL HOD come to me this afternoon and ask if it were possible to create a small internal telephone system say one to four phones that could be used in his Business Languages courses he has seen something at another school with this setup but I thought I'd ask here first and see what if anything is available. It doesn't need to be connected with the outside world but would need to be able to ring other phones in this internal group et cetera some sort of verbal examination I believe. I thought Headphones mics and a sort of internal skype would be sufficent does anyone know of something like this or a more elegant solution?


Thanks

Wes

SIP softphone such a SJPhone can do direct sip to sip voip calling so that app installed on 4 machines with headset/mic would do it.

Ben

Because that's all how they really do it in business :p

Just priced up a custom built system based on Asterisk/Linux - £4900 for 60 phones on PCs including all hardware, setup and connection to our analogue PBX.

You could go it alone with an Asterisk distro - there are video walkthroughs on setting it up - looks a cinch.

Back in my day (Ho Hum) they would have utilised old tin cans and string and got on with it. Nowaday's they want everything and it has to be like yesterday, that reminds me..................................zzzzzzzzzzzzz. ..snore!... snore!...eh!, now where was I :) :) :).

P.S Mark that was what we were thinking of trying out next term.

Try the gamers favourite - TeamSpeak Easily setup and you can add as many channels as you like.

It would also be possible to link to other schools that install it too.

Best of all - it's free :) and very simple for kids to use.

If you want to try Asterisk the have a look at Trixbox and also the Xorcom Rapid installation which is the one I'm using at the moment.

Ben

Trixbox has my vote we now use this for our main system in school (and also at home who else can boast an IP PBX at home with automated digital receptionist?-Sad I know but does well at stopping cold callers!) dead easy to install, you could have a basic system up in about 1hr 30mins. As previously said you can use either softphones or pick some cheap SIP hardware phones up (or go ebaying for the dogs boll**** in IP telephony Cisco 7960's which can be had for about £45 though you will probably have to flash these to SIP firmware - recommend v 7.5). And providing you don't wana connect to the outside world all you will need is a fairly well speced PC P4 512MB should do you nicely.

No 7960's on ebay at the moment for anywhere near £45 which is a real shame :(

Also some scammers flogging sip firmware for £10 a go.

The problem I had with trixbox was getting it to recognize my X100P card.

Zorcom install worked fine.

Ben

Yeah thats a shame as I need a new phone setup for home as my dect sets packing in and time for a full IP system I thinks, another excuse for another PC (read that as PC 18) to enter the house :D The Cisco phones do look nice though. Is this SIP firmware you mention a Cisco one or another one that works on it (Note I am new to this stuff as I normally get someone in to do this stuff etc)

Duuno it says Cisco SIP firmware.

Unless you buy a Cisco phone with a sip licence you could be on dodgy ground by unlocking it to work on sip yourself with how Cisco have licensed them maybe I guess.

Just buy a Grandstream Budgetone 200.

Ben

True, but I just fancied a Cisco to show off really, it would look snazzy. Also noted that in my last post that should read PC eighteen not what its showing.

Should have disabled smileys on that post then john :)

That involves thinking ;) and if the cool dude comes up with 8) then its a new one on me. I see that the Trixbox site has some info on changing Cisco phones to SIP mode, you seem to need a real Cisco support agreement