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You don't know the alternative and call yourself a geek? Or, maybe an AC is no a geek!

The alternative is to use SIP phones. And then if you don't like one provider, you get another. For example,

    http://les.net/

is one provider I've had experience with. But you can get lots more if you want,
    http://www.sipcenter.com/sip.nsf/html/Service+Providers

With SIP you can use ANY provider and not waste money on substandard service. Heck, with SIP *you* can be your own provider with Asterisk PBX software.

There is probably more real phones available for SIP than the proprietary protocols like Skype,

http://www.grandstream.com/products.html

Very good phones from my own experience. Skype has been an obsolete VoIP solution for years now. Anyone seriously looking for a flexible VoIP solution, will only look at SIP.

Looks like These guys have pretty close to your shopping list covered- they even have a phone with auto answer that has our friend, the standard 2.5mm universal headset port, which could be used for hooking up to the PA system.

I am currently running a project for a small (less than 800 subscriber) telephone company that is looking at replacing their switch. Because of this I have been doing a lot of research on available solutions. Now, not knowing what Cisco gave you as a quote for the system (Cisco may be significantlly cheaper than a softswitch), I would suggest looking at some of the Softswitch vendors that work in the ILEC industry, MetaSwitch, Taqua, CopperCom, Santera, Etc. A few of the vendors that offer services in this market came from the corporate PBX world and the majority, if not all (currently in the reasearch process), offer VoIP in their product. From the layout of your company you may find this to be a better fit.

"I am looking to have at least the following capabilities:
-Auto attendant
-Handle a PRI (hopefully allow forwarding of old PBX DIDs)
-Handle long distance T1 (we would initially segment off some channels from our current PBX)
-Handle WAN Traffic so we could utilize our unused channels for long distance from other locations
-Forwarding of voicemails to email

Nice optional features:
-Web based GUI for voicemail administration
-GUI call manager

Of the list of options that you are looking for, the only two that I'm not sure of availability with a Softswitch solution is the auto attendant and the voice mail forwarding (I think the voice mail forwarding is available, not positive). Also, a softswitch could provide more flexibility than a limited PBX system. I'm not sure if this is a better option, or even if a softswitch would fit into your system, but I thought I'd throw it out there as a potential option.

When I started my initial research into switch vendors I found this site Sipcenter.com was a useful resource for identifying potential vendors, although a few of the links are dead from the market fall. They have a section for IP PBX vendors, it may help you find a solution.

My recommendation, if you haven't already done this, is to put together a list of 10 - 12 potential vendors and send them a RFI/RFP. You may find a RFI/RFP process to be a valuable way to not only find a good solution, but provide you with the information to sway your boss(es).

You are a complete fucktard.

• Telecom giants join Linux effort
• Carrier Grade Linux
• Nortel Succession Communication Server 2000
• Cisco SIP Proxy
• Mitel 3050ICP
• Morotola Carrier Grade Chassis
• Motorola HA Linux
• Motorola VoIP
• Zultys Phones
• Zultys PBX
• SNOM Phones
• SNOM Media Server
• Asterisk
• Vovida

Can you say Open Standard?

Nortel Network's Succession products do have SIP as well as H.323 compatability, and they are designed for building large VoIP networks. Also see SIPCenter for other venders. Hopefully we will see services built with this stuff soon, and then SIP phones, and SIP software for your PC will be more useful.

If you're interested in running VOCAL, I'd recommend a Linux box running the old egcs 1.1.2 compiler. We use Redhat 6.2 internally for development. If you use Redhat 7 (or one of the newer 2.95 or 2.96 compilers), we have patches that help.

Yes, I know this compiler isn't really as ISO C++ as it ought to. But we wrote all of our code to this compiler, so it's the best supported one.

BSD would require porting (which I will be working on when I have a chance). The big issues are threads -- the code requires reasonable thread support, and can occasionally require preemption between threads, so some thread libraries (e.g. pth) may not be enough.

Solaris works, but you'll need the Forte Compiler (SunPro) to make it work easily.

Ethernet Phones

Then, you'll need some phones. I think the Cisco 7960 phones are nice, and you can get SIP for them (but they are expensive). Other manufacturers can be gotten from SipCenter's web site, as well as this German site. We are one floor above the Komodo guys, and their boxes are quite reasonably priced (although I'm not sure how to get a SIP version).

Another alternative would be to use a Linux box as a phone.

More expensive would be a quicknet card or two. They're $100-$200 dollars, and sound better then sound cards.

Cheapest is a sound card. We have soundcard support in vocal, but it's not great (although some of that is our fault).

Gateways

You don't strictly need one of these if you're just interested in trying out VoIP, want to do an intercom-type system, or are trying to make calls over the Internet, but if you want to be able to receive calls from or place calls to the PSTN (the "real" telephone network), you'll need to get a gateway or two. Here, I know that Cisco makes them, as well as some other guys (Sonus? Nuera? Look at Henning's page and SipCenter for more gateway manufacturers).

I hope this helps.

If you're interested in running VOCAL, I'd recommend a Linux box running the old egcs 1.1.2 compiler. We use Redhat 6.2 internally for development. If you use Redhat 7 (or one of the newer 2.95 or 2.96 compilers), we have patches that help.

Yes, I know this compiler isn't really as ISO C++ as it ought to. But we wrote all of our code to this compiler, so it's the best supported one.

BSD would require porting (which I will be working on when I have a chance). The big issues are threads -- the code requires reasonable thread support, and can occasionally require preemption between threads, so some thread libraries (e.g. pth) may not be enough.

Solaris works, but you'll need the Forte Compiler (SunPro) to make it work easily.

Ethernet Phones

Then, you'll need some phones. I think the Cisco 7960 phones are nice, and you can get SIP for them (but they are expensive). Other manufacturers can be gotten from SipCenter's web site, as well as this German site. We are one floor above the Komodo guys, and their boxes are quite reasonably priced (although I'm not sure how to get a SIP version).

Another alternative would be to use a Linux box as a phone.

More expensive would be a quicknet card or two. They're $100-$200 dollars, and sound better then sound cards.

Cheapest is a sound card. We have soundcard support in vocal, but it's not great (although some of that is our fault).

Gateways

You don't strictly need one of these if you're just interested in trying out VoIP, want to do an intercom-type system, or are trying to make calls over the Internet, but if you want to be able to receive calls from or place calls to the PSTN (the "real" telephone network), you'll need to get a gateway or two. Here, I know that Cisco makes them, as well as some other guys (Sonus? Nuera? Look at Henning's page and SipCenter for more gateway manufacturers).

I hope this helps.