SPA-3000 Review/Guide: Affordable Home PBX

Kerbo writes "Seems every few days there is another news item about Asterisk PBX or Asterisk@Home, the open-source PBX system and associated installer package. You may have even been wondering what equipment you need to get started. The Geek Gazette has posted a review of the Sipura SPA-3000 ATA/Gateway with a complete setup guide on configuring it to work with Asterisk. This makes a very cost-effective way to get started by using your existing phone line as a trunk into the PBX."

Comments

Asterisk.

[Anonymous Coward]

Good to see that asterisk is in the news more and more. It is great a great pbx with so many ways to configure.

Re:ignorant question

[grasshoppa]

There are a few ways this could be helpful:

1) Voicemail. Someone leaves a message, the pbx emails it to you.

2) VoIP usability. Once the line makes it into my pbx, regardless of how, it's mine. I go on vacation? Cool, I just pack up my phone and take it with me.

Those are just two off the top of my head, I'm sure I could think of more were I to really focus on it.

Price

[stoolpigeon]

I couldn't find the price in the article-- may have missed it. Went to the Sipura sight and they don't sell directly to end users. They do have links to sites that do sell to end-users and I found it for $99

Re:i wonder....

[grasshoppa]

Knee jerk reaction: Cisco's phones work just fine with asterisk.

Re:ignorant question

[Cynshard]

Super Caller Id

Missing a crucial piece of hardware

[caryw]

My company just went completely VoIP. We were originally entertaining the Asterisk PBX option but decided against it for the time being.
I can not seem to find a piece of hardware that will generate a dial tone on 16 or 24 different ports. I'm looking for one switch-type looking device, preferably rack mountable, that will take however many phones lines, and connect them via whatever to an Asterisk PBX.

As of right now we put a bunch of the Sipura SPA-1001M in our back room plugged into our router and punched down to the 66 block going to all of the phone sockets in the offices.

Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.
--
Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County, VA comes out to play

Re:Missing a crucial piece of hardware

[KodaK]

If I understand what you've described then what you need is a channel bank and a t1 card for the asterisk box. The channel bank will provide dial tone for up to 24 lines, digitize the lines and pass them to asterix via t1, from there you can route them where you want.

Better Link

[XanC]

Article on one page, with screenshots, no ads.

http://geekgazette.com/index2.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=28&Itemid=26&pop=1&page=0

You are correct.

[Colol]

What you'll get when you sign up with the likes of Vonage, Packet5, or the other services is an ATA to connect both your WAN connection and your phone to. With the bare-bones ATA, you plug it directly into your cable or DSL modem, and connect any other devices (routers, etc) downstream of the ATA. This lets the ATA (a) avoid problems with NAT by being outside NAT and (b) keep your call quality up there by enforcing QoS limits on all non-VoIP traffic. The ATAs are also generally smart enough to loosen up the restrictions when the phone's not actually in use.

Vonage (Packet5 may be now as well, I can't recall) also offers an all-in-one solution that's a router and an ATA in one box. You can also pick up the combos yourself (Linksys makes 'em), but they tend to be tied to one specific service -- so do your homework before you sink the cash on a combination ATA and router.

Affordable PBX? Nortel......

[killercoder]

I've had a PBX at home for 2 years now.....look around any old office building thats getting renovated - you'll find at least two PBX's getting tossed out.

Nortel Cics or Mics are the most common, they work great, have zero noise/fans. Autoattendant (on most models - or with the Star Talk Flash), voice mail, Fax reroute etc. Great little systems, why go Asterisk?

I love all tech - just cause it's old/experienced don't abandon it.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one...

[lpangelrob2]

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one that saw "PBX" and said, "WTF is a PBX?"

Short for private branch exchange, a private telephone network used within an enterprise. Users of the PBX share a certain number of outside lines for making telephone calls external to the PBX.

Most medium-sized and larger companies use a PBX because it's much less expensive than connecting an external telephone line to every telephone in the organization. In addition, it's easier to call someone within a PBX because the number you need to dial is typically just 3 or 4 digits.

A new variation on the PBX theme is the centrex, which is a PBX with all switching occurring at a local telephone office instead of at the company's premises.

From the Webopedia.

Re:i wonder....

[bani]

Cisco may be buying up sipura just so they can shut it down. Sipura's products compete with Cisco's own products.

Sorta like microsoft buying out companies just to eliminate competition.

Stop trying to see a *big picture*

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes there is a lot more happing in a simple setup.

I have 1 POTS line, 3 IP phones, and a plain old cordless plugged into an FXS port on my asterisk server. Keep in mind this is a collection of parts that have grown from testing. All that would be needed for this is either 2 analog phones with FXS, or 1 analog and 1 IP phone etc etc you get the idea.

I get a regular phone call, my home phones all ring, there's no answer, it goes to voicemail, people can pick who they want to leave voicemail for. I get a copy of the .wav file emailed to me as well. Nothing mind boggling.

2 of the IP phones are at home, 1 is Overseas where I have family. My wife returns back for a visit every year. Most of the year it is the line she uses to keep in touch with family (once she plugs in the second box over there for me, she can use it to dial out to her friends over there as a local call as well)

While she is back visiting, she can try to call me via IP. Failing that, dial 9 and the number and dial out from our landline to my mobile phone, for example (which, coincidentally, is not always great when you're "killing time at the pub") . When she is away, she uses this to keep in touch with others here, and to continue and other local business calls she needs to make.

I can also dial home, hit a key to dial out before voicemail rolls in, and reach my overseas IP phone.

This isn't an overly complicated setup, cost little money to setup, and created an extremely useful way to keep in contact. Don't turn on all the bells and whistles and you don't scare callers (Do they *really* need dial by name?) The situation I use it in is nothing off the wall, and it's simple to use. This doesn't even *start* to cover the practical applications it has WITHOUT being an overbearing system.

For a small consulting business, or mobile worker, there's a huge benefit. Even for a family, there's a major convenience. And according to my call detail records, in under a year I've already paid off anything spent in savings from overseas calling (and more). The rest of the ongoing savings can go to my beer fund. You can call it pointless if you want. My pint glass and I would disagree with you though.

VoIP, QoS and OnDo SIP Server

[Da_Biz]

I test VoIP products for my company, and have found that QoS needs to be managed at a basic level. If you're in a household that has slower DSL, or limited upstream bandwidth (for instance, Comcast Cable Modem in Portland), it would be wise to have your router process and remark (DSCP) all of the traffic between your IP phones and the router as EF.

Granted, your ISP probably doesn't care if your traffic is marked EF, but would prevent PCs on your local network from clobbering your bandwidth during a call.

Also, check out OnDo SIP Server from Brekeke. I play with it in my VoIP lab, and find that it's a find piece of software for quick n' dirty SIP setups. It's free for non-commercial users.

The slightly more adventurous can try Asterisk@Home which has a streamlined setup.

Use bandwidth shaping

[shis-ka-bob]

1) Find a old (486+) PC with two ethernet ports.

2) Purchase and Install OpenBSD

3) Purchase Building Firewalls with OpenBSD and PF, 2nd ed by Jacek Artymiak (ISBN: 83-916651-1-9)

4) Use bandwidth shaping as described in chapter 10.

5)Enjoy your new router.

This should give you high priority bandwith for the VoIP. It cannot control how your ISP allocates bandwith (of course), but I think that this would help the average user happier with both voice and data share the same bandwith.

Re:community voip service?

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.fwdout.net/web/ does exactly that, share a line, get a line.