[thebarge]

I've been doing a little research into telephony and VOIP. I'm an IT professional who works from home. I have a standard line for my home phone and I'm thinking of signing up with a VOIP provider for my office phone. Just got a couple stupid questions...

1) I'm very interested in open source software and the like. I'd like to learn more about telephony. Would it be stupid for me to install Asterisk on my linux server and get a provider for IAX termination (like VoicePlus Connect or something similar)? Please keep in mind I enjoy learning about new technologies and I realize that using Asterisk does require me to learn how to configure it and such

2) If I bought an IP telephone how does it connect? Does it just have a RJ45 connector on the back to plug into my hub? If so - I assume it needs to be configured to work thru my Asterisk server? (assuming I decide to use asterisk) EDIT: If I bought the SPA3000 can I use my conventional phone instead?

3) When using IAX termination with Asterisk (or SIP or whatever it supports) does it handle the advanced features like voice mail, caller ID, and things like call prompts (dunno the real term.. but "press 1 for support, 2 for this, 3 for that").

4) Do any IP phones (that works with Asterisk or VOIP) have a jack to allow me to use my standard phone line along with VOIP as different phone lines?

5) I've currently got a Linksys WRT54G router. If I was to use Asterisk (or VOIP without IAX termination) would I just have to open up some ports on my router to route traffic to my Asterisk box? Is there a fairly cheap consumer router that would allow me to dedicate a certain amount of bandwidth for VOIP? I've currently got DSL service with 3Mbsp down, 384Kbps up.

Sorry for the stupid questions

Thanks.

[muppetmaster]

Originally Posted by thebarge

1) I'm very interested in open source software and the like. I'd like to learn more about telephony. Would it be stupid for me to install Asterisk on my linux server and get a provider for IAX termination (like VoicePlus Connect or something similar)? Please keep in mind I enjoy learning about new technologies and I realize that using Asterisk does require me to learn how to configure it and such

Not stupid at all, in fact a great idea.

Originally Posted by thebarge

2) If I bought an IP telephone how does it connect? Does it just have a RJ45 connector on the back to plug into my hub? If so - I assume it needs to be configured to work thru my Asterisk server? (assuming I decide to use asterisk) EDIT: If I bought the SPA3000 can I use my conventional phone instead?

Yes on all points. But start out with a softphone like http://www.xten.com to get things running and then start adding hardware.

Originally Posted by thebarge

3) When using IAX termination with Asterisk (or SIP or whatever it supports) does it handle the advanced features like voice mail, caller ID, and things like call prompts (dunno the real term.. but "press 1 for support, 2 for this, 3 for that").

Yes on all points.

Originally Posted by thebarge

4) Do any IP phones (that works with Asterisk or VOIP) have a jack to allow me to use my standard phone line along with VOIP as different phone lines?

The Sipura 3000 provides for PSTN interconnection.

Originally Posted by thebarge

5) I've currently got a Linksys WRT54G router. If I was to use Asterisk (or VOIP without IAX termination) would I just have to open up some ports on my router to route traffic to my Asterisk box? Is there a fairly cheap consumer router that would allow me to dedicate a certain amount of bandwidth for VOIP? I've currently got DSL service with 3Mbsp down, 384Kbps up.

The latest firmware for Linksys provides for QOS, simply update and use that. And yes, you would need to open some ports for best results.

[thebarge]

Great - thanks for the reply muppetmaster. I'll be researching some VOIP IAX termination providers this week and plan to sign up and get started with Asterisk (possibly) this week. Anyone know of a good provider that offers lots of numbers in many of the US48 states and provides IAX termination?

And that softphone by xten looks really promising. I'll have to check out some nice mic/headphone hardware to hook to my PC. As for the QOS settings on my router... I just looked at that.. it should allow me to set higher priority on VOIP traffic which will work great.

Thanks!