[olug] Asterisk and looking for SIP provider suggestions.

[Kenny Kant]

I have never seen the Sheeva plug before, very interesting!  Are you 
going to use your regular phones as handsets?  If so make sure you get 
an ATA that has an FXS port on it as well.   Also in regard to E911 
...etc that was one of the reasons I chose Quantumvoice they have E911 
support, Axvoice did not have it in Omaha.

Kenny



On 11/23/2010 2:37 PM, Jon Larsen wrote:
> Thanks for all the info guys.
>
> Here's what I'm thinking about based upon your recommendations and some
> searching:
>
> Drop my cox home phone to the basic, no extras except unlisted.  No
> need to mess with the E911 stuff with a SIP provider.
>
> Get a Cisco/Linksys ATA POTS adapter
>
> Get a sheevaplug and put PlugPBX on it. http://www.plugpbx.org
>
> Having something with no moving parts is appealing at the moment.
>
> Of course, I can also just get rid of my home phone altogether.
>
> Jon L.
>
>
> On Tue, 23 Nov 2010, Kenny Kant wrote:
>
>> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 13:49:08 -0600
>> From: Kenny Kant<kenny.kant at running-config.com>
>> Reply-To: Omaha Linux User Group<olug at olug.org>
>> To: Omaha Linux User Group<olug at olug.org>
>> Subject: Re: [olug] Asterisk and looking for SIP provider suggestions.
>>
>> Jon,  I  can offer the following:
>>
>> - SIP Providers / ITSP's for Asterisk:
>>
>>          - QuantumVoice (http://www.quantumvoice.com) - I have used them on and
>> off for the past 5 years.  I moved away from them at one point because they
>> did not have very flexible pricing plans but this has changed so I came back
>> to them.  They have a cool add-on feature for incoming fax-to-email which I
>> like as well.  I understand they recently changed owners so there seems to be
>> some transition going on but service on the whole has been reliable.  They
>> also have setup instructions for Asterisk and/or will send you an ATA to use
>> with their service.
>>
>>      - AxVoice (http://www.axvoice.com) - I used these guys for about two years
>> because they were recommended on the nerd vittles website.  I never had a
>> problem with them and would recommend them as well.  I think they are out of
>> New York and have changed some of their pricing plans to be more competitive
>> now as well.
>>
>>
>> If you do not want to get a SIP provider you can always bring in a regular
>> analog line into your Asterisk box but you will need to terminate it somehow.
>> Digium makes a number of smaller PCI cards you can install into your machine
>> which will give you FXO ports.   I believe the smallest you can get now from
>> Digium  is a 4 port (http://www.digium.com/en/products/analog/tdm410.php) but
>> they used to make single port cards which you can still find around the Net:
>> http://www.echostore.com/ax-100p.html.  Sangoma is another manufacturer I have
>> heard good things about I would check them out too.   Alternatively,  you can
>> get an external ATA device that comes with FXO ports that you can hook to your
>> network that will then feed your Asterisk box via SIP.  I believe Linksys,
>> Sipura and others have these.  When we still had Cox for home phone line we
>> used an old Cisco MC3810 Router with FXO Cards to terminate analog and send to
>> our home Asterisk.
>>
>> These would all be options for someone wanting to setup an Asterisk box from
>> scratch.  The setup process is not very hard to do but making changes to a
>> bare Asterisk system is not very menu driven ..etc If you are looking for
>> something a little easier to maintain you can look at:
>>
>> - Switchvox - which is a commercial version of Asterisk packaged with a great
>> GUI.  You can purchase a switchvox appliance but this would probably be
>> overkill cost wise for a home setup.  However you can still install the
>> Switchvox package onto a machine and use it for home use.  There is a limit on
>> total number extensions ..etc but it is a great alternative.
>>
>> AsteriskNOW - is another effort from Digium to take Asterisk and give it a
>> GUI. I believe this is a full Linux distribution which has Asterisk + FreePBX
>> packaged all into one.  This I think is free as well.
>>
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> Kenny
>>
>>
>> On 11/23/2010 7:58 AM, Jon Larsen wrote:
>>> I'm looking to cancel my landline phone and park the phone number with a
>>> SIP provider and use asterisk to connect for the calls.  Does anyone have
>>> any suggested SIP providers?  Is that what I want?  Are there
>>> alternatives?  Has anyone else done this, and if so, how detailed was the
>>> setup with an asterisk box?  Can you recommend a small, embedded asterisk
>>> device for home use?
>>>
>>> Jon L.
>>>
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