[olug] Asterisk and looking for SIP provider suggestions.

Tue Nov 23 20:37:20 UTC 2010

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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-- 
Jon H. Larsen  - relayer -at- levania -dot- org
Blog - http://levania.org/relayer/
VP of Community Development, Omaha Linux Users Group - http://www.olug.org/
AnimeSunday.org - http://www.animesunday.org/