Setup asterisk to work with vonage

Posts: 230 · Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:17 pm Post subject:

that is correct and you need a dual FXO card to do that.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 21, 2005 Posts: 1

tommy13v, you mentioned that you need a dual FXO card to be able to allow calls in the event that one of the lines is busy. Do you need a dual FXO, or can you use 2 separate cards?

I'm looking at setting up with a Vonage account and another provider. (Vonage can't give me the area code I want.) This way I have 2 lines. If one is busy, I'll have it forward to the other line for incoming calls from the provider.

Also, with Astrisk, and 2 lines, can I have a call on hold which came in on the first line, and then have the switch find me on the other line, and connect the call?

Please advise...

Posts: 27 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Jul 07, 2005 Posts: 27

If I did not want ot by the fxo card - could I add 4 softphones to get 4 seperate lines?

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 05, 2005 Posts: 33

SuprSpy79 wrote:

If I did not want ot by the fxo card - could I add 4 softphones to get 4 seperate lines?

Theoretically, 1 softphone line should allow for an unlimited number of incoming and outgoing lines, limited by the bandwidth you have available to you. If you wanted 4 discrete dial-in numbers, each one ringing to a different extension or group of extensions, you can set up Asterisk to recognize which number was called an act appropriately. In this case, you would only need 1 softphone account and 3 additional virtual dial-in numbers.

You need Asterisk 1.2 beta 1 or better to do this, and it is accomplished by inspecting the SIP header.

Posts: 33 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 05, 2005 Posts: 33

As a general comment, FXO cards only get you so far, because you are limited to the number of physical FXO ports you can dial in and out on. Additionally you are introducing another analog to digital conversion in the process (think of recording a cassette to CD and then recording that back to cassette and then digitizing to CD again... you lose something with each "generation").

With the SoftPhone solution, you can have your Asterisk server anywhere in the world, and as long as you have Internet access, your IP phone can talk to your server. Your server is not restricted to an artificially low upstream bandwidth and you can support many many times the capacity that your home broadband can.

In my installation, my Asterisk box talks to Broadvoice and Vonage Softphone terminated in a colocation facility in Houston, TX. I am physically located in NYC. My Cisco IP phones in my apartment ring in sync with my home number (using Simulring). Analog phones in the apartment also ring via the ATA. My laptop "rings" in sync with the other IP phone extensions when the X-Lite softphone client is running. Using extensions.conf, I employ least expensive call routing so outgoing calls go out via Broadvoice, and fail over to use Vonage if it isn't needed.

Even with Vonage + Softphone and a Broadvoice account, I still pay less than I ever did to MCI.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Oct 14, 2005 Posts: 1

alee wrote:

In my installation, my Asterisk box talks to Broadvoice and Vonage Softphone terminated in a colocation facility in Houston, TX. I am physically located in NYC.

This is very similar to something I have been thinking of doing for a while. I an American but I currently live in Chile where I run a small outsourcing operation. I have had Vonage since I started this business almost two years ago (still on a Motorola VT1005V.) Voip has made tis business possible.

As the business grows I was thinking of going to an Asterisk solution hosted on a rented dedicated server in the states to handle more incoming/outgoing lines from the US and even adding in a FXO/FXS so that I can patch calls through to and from local POTS lines here in Chile.

My big concerns about this are:

1) Do I need Linux. I already have a hosted dedicated Windows server and I prefer not to have to get another one.

2) Can Asterisk be installed without physical access? What I have mostly read about Asterisk talks about installing the entire system (OS and all) from a CD.

3) Could I get by with the performance on a Virtual Dedicated server - a much cheaper solution? From what I have read it sounds like Asterisk needs a lot of CPU.

I wish Vonage provide more flexible support for those of us who want to implement our own SIP solution. It seems a waste to have to have the regular service and then start adding on Softphones to make this possible. But, since Vonage seems to have the best quality out there, for now I don't see another option.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 27, 2005 Posts: 1

alee wrote:

Theoretically, 1 softphone line should allow for an unlimited number of incoming and outgoing lines, limited by the bandwidth you have available to you. If you wanted 4 discrete dial-in numbers, each one ringing to a different extension or group of extensions, you can set up Asterisk to recognize which number was called an act appropriately. In this case, you would only need 1 softphone account and 3 additional virtual dial-in numbers.

This is exactly what I've been trying to figure out how to do (I just got my *box up and running, now it says asterisk isn't running after a reboot, but that's another forum topic). With the softphone & regular Vonage option, how do you circumvent the 500 out minutes per month on the softphone, especially if you're doing simultaneous calls?

Thanks for all the great info!

Rob.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 17, 2004 Posts: 1

Can someone point me in the right direction to getting this X100P talking to my ATA properly? I'm running AAH and I "thought" my ZAP/g0 was trunk set up right. But when I call in it picks up and then hangs up.
As for my outbound it just gives me a 484. Anyone have some cofigs so I can compare and get this working?

Thanks,
Aaron

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jan 01, 2006 Posts: 10

This topic is a bit over my head but here goes.

I have been think of asterisk for my business (use Vonage at home) but would like to have it hosted/maintained for me. Any companies doing this?

Also for the remote access I want to route calls to cell phones not IP phones via an FX-300 GSM unit. see http://www.voipsupply.com/product_info.php?products_id=1291

My second question is can asterisk via its auto attendant function engage the FXS port connected to the FX-300 GSM and dial the proper cell number. So if a caller presses 1 for sales it engages the FXS port connected to the FX-300 GSM and calls a certain cell phone number. I use the FX-300 with my voange at home but is does not have any auto attendant function so I can only forward my Voip calls to one programmed cell number.

With this set up for my business I figure I would not need to buy any IP phones but instead I use my existing cell phones as my extension phones for outbound and inbound Voip calling. Buying 3-4 FX-300 units is cheaper than buying 10-15 IP phones. Plus I get the mobility bonus.

All the calls from the asterisk pbx to my cell phones and vise versa are free onnet calls so there are no charges to me on my cingular busines plan.

I think this would be a really great set up. Yes/no?