Suggestions for Home PBX/Key System? 165
"The system I want to build doesn't need to be complicated. I'd like to have two outside lines and about five inside lines. I'd like the system to have all the standard cool features, like intercomm and station-to-station calls and such, but I'd also like to do some exotic things. For example, I'd like to implement a call whitelist system, where during certain hours of the day, only calls from numbers on a pre-defined "white list" ring through, and all other calls go to voicemail. I'm guessing that something like that will require programming, and I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty. I just don't know where to start.
It sounds like a fun hobby project-- to me anyway. Can anyone point me in the right direction?"
Asterisk PBX (Score:5, Informative)
It is all linux based and the hardware is very nicely priced. I have this running at home and love it!
Re:Asterisk PBX (Score:2, Informative)
For the internal lines, a couple Internet PhoneJack cards will do it. Current supported FXS cards (FXS is the type of line the telco gives you) only support 1 port per slot. If you need more, you can either use two machines and hook them together via VoIP or get a channel bank and T1 card.
The channel bank solution can easily give you 24lines but would run around $700 ($500 for the t1 card and $200ish for a channel bank on eBay).
H.323 and SIP support are in the codebase, but in beta quality. IAX is Asterisk's naitive VoIP protocol. It's also supported by gnophone.
vgetty for smaller stuff (Score:3, Informative)
Informative (Score:3, Informative)
Nice system (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not a DIY project, but these people make an awesome phone system for home/home office use.
http://www.talkswitch.com/
You can get a 2-line or 4-line system, and new systems due out will be able to handle VoIP.
They're physically quite small, work with standard phones, regenerate caller-ID info (this was a killer for me, I couldn't find any other system that did it), programmable via PC.
I've had mine for over a year, and mostly use it for the auto-attendant to screen calls, ringdown to try me at home, if I don't answer forward them to my cell,and the built-in voicemail. It's awesome!
- Turbo
Dialogic MSI board and support web site (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Dialogic MSI board and support web site (Score:2)
The coolest feature that I still haven't found anywhere is a scripting language to alter the behavior of the system and phones. I would do that.
Re:Dialogic MSI board and support web site (Score:2, Interesting)
Dialogic is the standard in the industry. (Score:2)
Dialogic is the standard in the PBX industry. If you use Dialogic boards, you can be assured of compatibility with the most software, and a long useful life for your hardware.
On the other hand, Intel is good only with microprocessors, m. support chips, and motherboards. It might not be a good thing that Intel bought Dialogic. (Intel closed its consumer electronics division after many, many blunders.)
System Release 5.1 for RedHat Linux [intel.com]
A chunk of change??? (Score:2)
I worked in competitive analysis at Lucent (now Avaya) 4-5 years ago. Some of our competitors used Dialogic boards in their systems, and part of my job was cost analysis - In small quantities, even basic Dialogic boards were $1500 or so. You could get MAJOR volume discounts, but to drop the price below $500 you needed to buy a LOT of boards. (You could get thr price to below $300-400 if you bought enough IIRC...)
Cool hardware, but WAY too much $$$$$ unles prices have gone down.
A few Places (Score:4, Informative)
However, I want to kludge up something as well so here is my research for you.
http://www.mtnsys.com/ Software
http://www.openippbx.org/ Nix software
http://www.virtualpbx.com/ More software.
Hope this helps.
Puto
What does PBX stand for? (Score:1)
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:2, Informative)
(Private Branch eXchange) An inhouse telephone switching system that interconnects telephone extensions to each other as well as to the outside telephone network (PSTN). A PBX enables a single-line telephone set to gain access to one of a group of pooled (shared) trunks by dialing an 8 or 9 prefix. PBXs also include functions such as least cost routing for outside calls, call forwarding, conference calling and call accounting. Modern PBXs use all-digital methods for switching, but may support both analog and digital telephones and telephone lines. See IP PBX and WPBX.
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:1, Redundant)
Michael (ex PBX engineer)
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:1)
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:1)
This is one of those cases where an acronym has multiple acceptable and correct variations, live with it!
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:2, Informative)
The PSTN is like the telephone version of the Intranet, and a PBX would be the telephone version of a LAN.
Re:What does PBX stand for? (Score:1)
If you're going to karma whore by defining acronyms, at least get it right. You can look these kinds of things up on everything2.com or dictionary.com. And better yet, you can even link to the definition (since moderators like these kinds of things... it's a "safe" use of moderation points).
Asterisk of course! (Score:1, Redundant)
http://www.asteriskpbx.com/main/
Searching for PBX and Linux will get you Aaterisk. Asterisk is open source, works with widely available, relatively inexpensive hardware, runs linux, and is very flexible. Here is a feature list:
Extension routing logic
Simple but functional voicemail, including e-mail notification
Call bridging
Call transfer
Call parking
Intercom (using sound card)
Directory
Execute arbitrary commands
Simple configuration using text files
Re:Asterisk of course! (Score:2)
http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8678310302
looks like this will work great for what your looking for.
Openh323.org (Score:2, Informative)
I'm kinda in the industry (Score:3, Interesting)
I think you probably have two options. The biggest commercial effort in this area was called CyberGenie. I forget who made these units, but they are actually pretty neat. They no longer make them or anything, but they are on eBay for like ~$50... you can have up to 10 handsets I believe. The worst part of them is that the OS of the host machine has to be a Microsoft (ugh) and worse yet, Win98 is far and away the most supported OS. I'm on the CyberGenie mailing list (yeah, I guess I Dont get enough spam) and tons of people try to get these going with Win2000 and it isn't worth the trouble. Go ahead and Google for CyberGenie, it'll give you better information than I can give you.
Your other option is to go out and buy yourself a Dialogic Card and program one yourself. A Simple 4 line ISA card will cost you about $100 on eBay. We use Dialogic cards at my work (http://www.telecorpproducts.com) for some real time voice processing stuff. Well a previous developer bought the wrong model so I borrowed it and took it home. Some of the Dialogic models have Linux support. I popped it into my Linux box, and then developed a simple C app to capture the caller ID information coming into my phone w/ the fairly easy to use Dialogic API that dumps the CallerID info into a MySQL DB. Then a simple PHP page to query the DB and viola.. from anywhere in the world I can see who's been callin our casa.
From there it's pretty easy to do voice processing, transfers, etc... At work we take the raw voice coming off the card, do some shifting around, and then pass that information off to a RealAudio SDK/Server to send real time voice over the Internet (specific to call center monitoring)..
Oh well, best of luck... you can either buy a canned, unsupported package or strike out on your own (and I hope open source the results so I can use it for my home!)
Re:I'm kinda in the industry (Score:1)
I have one, and recommend (Score:5, Interesting)
That is one of the most important variables: can you connect cheap analog sets, or must you use expensive key sets?
Used to be a phone engineer so it's an interesting hobby but also useful: share 2 lines, connect through, redirect fax calls to the fax, etc - recommend you buy a cheap analog PBX - few hunbdred bucks in Europe.
MW
Re:I have one, and recommend (Score:2)
The best part is the music on hold, it blows people away
Re:I have one, and recommend (Score:2)
I moved out of the house, and my wife broke all but one of the phones (not malicious, she is just rough on phones). It has one outside line connected.
Considerations for a new system:
- Caller ID passed to sets?
- Can you use analog or key sets on the same line card?
- Integration with PC? Some provide telephony interface for PC software.
- Voicemail built-in or seperate? Full integration with PBX? Automated Attendant?
BTW, a Panasonic is a Key System, not a PBX.
And I won't mention how I submitted this story a week ago today and got it rejected within an hour. Oh. Too late. Fu2.
Software is the hard part, nor is reliability easy (Score:3, Interesting)
Standard PBX systems are designed for the famous "five nines" reliability. You don't get that from a regular PC -- for instance, PC hardware can't do hot swap, which any PBX worth its salt can.
If you're adventurous, you can cobble together "carrier grade" hardware nowadays using off-the-shelf cards in the Compact PCI (which is more accurately "collosal PCI") form factor plus the H.110 bus, which supports 4K time slots of TDM voice. Of course that's overkill for a home system, but some serious phone gear is built that way, using off-the-shelf Sparc or PowerPC CPUs.
Re:Software is the hard part, nor is reliability e (Score:2)
Standard PBX systems are designed for the famous "five nines" reliability. You don't get that from a regular PC -- for instance, PC hardware can't do hot swap, which any PBX worth its salt can.
IP Telephony can sound just as good or better than traditional telephony. With the Cisco gear we had (Call Manager and 7560 Phones) you could specify the bandwidth used, and on the high settings and low compression it was crystal clear. So don't just throw around statements saying IP telephony sucks.
Oh yeah, and another thing, that same Cisco IP telephony system was based on regular rebranded Compaq servers that Cisco had made sure were nice and stable. Oh yeah and they garunteed "five nines".
Re:Software is the hard part, nor is reliability e (Score:1)
If you don't want all the fancy stuff, it does look like IOS will suport the voice cards on the smaller modems so a call manager isn't needed any more but it will take quite a long time to set up.
Re:Software is the hard part, nor is reliability e (Score:2, Interesting)
The ciscos VoIP kit by comparison never worked any where near as well and were very disapointing - if you have a choice always go for the nortel, or at least test out the ciscos for yourself before you buy (they may have improved and/or have a configuration that works for you..)
Some links (Score:1)
linuxtelephony.org [linuxtelephony.org] is likely of interest. It has some good information and, just as importantly, lots of good links.
Asterisk [asterisk.org] seems to be a strong, fully featured, GPL'ed PBX project which has some hardware associated with the project that seems to be pretty well priced.
I can't seem to find my other links but they're probably linked off of linuxtelephony.org.
Home PBX (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Home PBX (Score:1)
Reece,
Re:Home PBX (Score:1)
Toshiba Strata VI (Score:1)
Features (Score:1)
1) Sidetracks telephone numbers not in a whitelist to a message which says something like "Telemarketers are unwelcome; others press 1 to ring through."
2) Encodes voicemail to MP3 and forwards it to my email box. That way I can use the mouse to slide forward and back through the message, save important messages easily, and listen to it on my OK computer speakers instead of the crappy speakerphone speakers.
Do any of the mentioned systems support that sort of thing?
Re:Features (Score:2)
That's a fantastic idea. I mean really fantastic. Can't believe I've never thought of that.
I hope somebody has a good suggestion on this subject.
Re:Features (Score:2)
Re:Features (Score:1)
Then it added an entry to a database containing the Date & Time, callerID, and length of the message. A simple php page allowed me to check the messages from home or work.
Unfortunately, vgetty is very difficult to get working, and the sound quality of my modem was pretty poor. But it's all there, and very possible.
Re:Features (Score:1)
Re:Features (Score:1)
Got it at work. The little blinky on my phone never lights up any more. Mighty fine for getting vmail in meetings, on the laptop, if potentially embarrassing.
Re:Features (Score:2)
The phone software had features like:
- digital answering machine, messages recorded to disk (as separate files for each msg)
- automated dial-out using a pre-recorded message
- similar automated functions for receiving faxes to files and automated sending of faxes
- all of the above integrated with an address and phone number database
- more stuff I can't remember right now.
Some of the above had convenience interfaces -- for example, you could set it to give yourself (or somebody else) a wake-up call at a certain time.
The point being, if you're going to use a general purpose computer as a PBX, you might as well take advantage of the fact that it's a general purpose computer. Make all of the above functions available via any other computer on the household LAN.
Re:Features (Score:1)
http://www.altigen.com/AltiServ_SmallOffice.htm
"The AltiServ SmallOffice solution is a fully converged PBX telephone system that uses the LAN, the internet and the public telephone network to enable an array of applications that take advantage of the convergence of voice and data communications.
The AltiServ SmallOffice supports both traditional and IP telephones as well as Voice over IP functionality, Contact Center capabilities, AltiWeb applications, T1-PRI interface, IP networking and interoffice trunking."
It has tons of features including e-mail integration.
"This allows AltiGen to support unified messaging giving the user the option of having their voice mail delivered to any POP3 e-mail server. Now you can access your voice mail without changing at all how you retrieve your e-mail now."
Not sure how much it costs, but it sure looks cool. =)
A home PBX (Score:1)
Intel has a SDK made by them for the boards, and the boards come in various flavors. There are boards for use with T1/E1s, ISDN lines, MSI systems and there is also a board that can be used for general TAPI applications such as an IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system. As for Intels SDK, it seems to be able to be used in both VisualBasic and C++.
More info can be found at http://www.dialogic.com [dialogic.com]
Check your LJ (Score:2)
wha? you don't subscribe? tsk...
Re:Check your LJ (Score:2)
As a matter of fact, that's what inspired me to Ask Slashdot. It never occurred to me that there might be others out there who shared my idea of a home PBX until I saw that article.
I did find it a little light on practical information, though. It read like a design specification, which is all fine and good, but....
wha? you don't subscribe? tsk...
Wha? Linux Journal isn't free? tsk...
Re:Check your LJ (Score:2)
I have two quicknet cards (phone jack and a line jack) and just want to do a simple computer answering machine... how the heck can I use bayonne to do that?
On top of this, I tried openam and it simply garbled the audio.. even just from machine on local net to machine on local net.
Sigh...
Siemens multi handset cordless systems (Score:2)
Another route is to buy a used Nortel Norstar system from some of the hundreds of key system vendors out there. Unfortunately they can get expensive but the telsets and ATA adapters often end up in junk and surplus shops or the local Goodwill for really cheap.
Calum
Re:Siemens multi handset cordless systems (Score:2)
The Siemens system is really far from being a true PBX-type system. It's just a glorified cordless phone with optional answering machine. Oh, and the cordless handsets sound terrible from the other end of the connection.
Re:Siemens multi handset cordless systems (Score:2)
We've been pretty happy with ours, but the only bug is the short standby time. Since you had one, what kind of talk and standby times were you getting?
I was plesantly surprised by some of the features in the Siemens system like station to station calling, barge in, and the caller log/directory features. It's by no means a true PBX, but for home use, it's not half bad. Even a small business could get a lot of use out of it.
Calum
Re:Siemens multi handset cordless systems (Score:2)
Dreadful. If I left the cordless handset out of its cradle for about 36 hours, it would start giving off that high-pitched "low battery" beep. Which is an amazing thing to wake up to in the middle of the night when you've left the handset on your bedside table.
Siemens Voice Quality (Score:1)
Toshiba DK40 + Stratagy (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Toshiba DK40 + Stratagy (Score:1)
Does she fight crime by night?
Re:Toshiba DK40 + Stratagy (Score:1)
Oh, but you can program it all through the phone. I've lost hours of my life doing just that. What was it, Extension #499?
I just wish the damn thing had understood daylight savings. Or not getting trapped in a loop on Friday at exactly 5:01 pm.
I wish I was employed, but I seriously don't miss that job in the slightest.
Try VOCP (Score:4, Informative)
Reliability (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep at least one analog 500 set wired directly to a trunk/outside line.
Calum
Re:Reliability (Score:1)
I can't speak for other PBX systems, but my dialogic patch panel forwards the first two trunks straight to specific systems in case of system crashes.
Re:Reliability (Score:1)
BTW: i agree with you on the 911 thing, i have called 2 times (REAL emergencies, other times i needed the police, i called their local number) and one time it was busy. can you believe that? busy. good thing the person i called it for wasnt hurt too bad.
Reliability -- (Score:5, Informative)
I've thought about homebrewing a system, but don't have a 30 hour day just yet. The panasonic box is reliable -- it just sits in the closet and works. Oh, when power fails, it automagically switches the CO (incoming) lines to the first n extensions, so you're not totally screwed.
Features with unintended consequences department: One cool feature of the panasonic system is the doorbell boxes. Put one on the front door, and you can answer the door from any phone connected to the system. Unfortunately when I first set up the system, the front door also rang the extension with the answering machine on it. We went away for the weekend -- when we returned, we found that the answering machine had been answering the front door! Oops! A "simple matter of programming" fixed that.
Re:Reliability -- (Score:2)
Doesn't sound like an "oops" to me. Sounds like a feature.
Re:Reliability -- (Score:1)
Bzzzt!
"I'm sorry, we're not home right now. But if you check under the flowerpot, the front door key is there. You may take anything but my 3133+ PBX system!"
1 idea (Score:5, Funny)
VoiceML & VoIP? (Score:3, Informative)
One thing I'd like to use that for is to leave messages for people who call in by letting them enter a PIN.
The only problem is the software, the projects on sourceforge don't seem to be that far along yet
I'd also check out VoIP for intercoms. There is opensource software for that. You could build your own VoIP intercoms/phones with a single board computer with built-in sound, or a usb soundcard, or the Creative Labs VoIP Blaster (there's oss called Fobbit to use that with Linux)
I've been abusing a 3com nbx (Score:2, Interesting)
why? (Score:1)
I mean, unless you have a crap-load of people calling you (unlikely) why would you subject yourself to the proprietary systems of a PBX/Key system?
A $40 Voicemail system is just fine, thank you.
Re:why? (Score:1)
1. Each handset can have it's own extension, and therefore can call other extensions - very handy for upstairs/downstairs.
2. DID (direct-incoming-dial). This allows a public phone number to ring a single handset inside the house.
3. Voicemail (PBX based) can utilize these features to allow for personalized messaging, and with a simple press of the button, all calls can go direct to voicemail (no ringing phones!!!).
PBX's can be inexpensive when purchased used.
Hybrid Old Phone systems + Linux for Vmail (Score:2, Interesting)
Surplus sites and auction sites like Ebay [ebay.com] are good for this sort of thing. Myself, I have a Computone Executech II key system with nice lcd speakerphones and programmable button consoles. I got the PBX and 15 phones on ebay for $65+s/h. While it is true you can't plug in a plain old telepohone (POTs), Even these old proprietary phone systems have some "auxilary" jacks on them for regular analog devices (fax machines, etc) you may want to use at an extension. I was able to use google groups to find all the pertinent wiring information before I even bid on it.
I use this phone system in conunction with vgetty and this [vocpsystem.com]. If someone calls in and the VOCP system answers, you can do all the standard voicemail stuff, you can issue a page to my email pager, send a fax(which can be forwarded to email) or I can even dial into the system and get a PPP dial-up connection if I'm on the road and otherwise don't have internet.
What about the Telco side, maybe a dumb a question (Score:1)
There are a lot of cool and useful things that you could do with open box PC based PBX (here in Australia they are referred to as PABX, hav no idea why). I especially dream of all the cool things that you could do by integrating the PBX with an SME's ERM database , maintaining phone logs for every customer, bringing up the customers details based on caller-id.
My question is just how much do you need the co-operation of the telco to get a system like this to work , i.e I might want 4 lines in but I don't want 4 different numbers, is there an open standard, or am I forced to involve the telco in how I setup my PBX?
Re:What about the Telco side, maybe a dumb a quest (Score:2)
You can use a PBX with any number of incoming lines (as long as that number is at least one) and with any service from your telco. So the question of whether you buy a rotary group of lines or lines with distinct numbers is entirely up to you.
Re:What about the Telco side, maybe a dumb a quest (Score:4, Informative)
It entirely depends on what you want to do. Many PBX systems are perfectly happy sitting on a single POTS line. One caller ties up the entire system except extension to extension calls. This is what you commonly find at very small stores where you ring in and then punch up an extension. Busy's are common. The system is referred to as a key system. A user has to select one of the unused outside lines to place a call and has to select one of the ringing lines (or line on hold) to answer a call.
A Private Branch Exchange is much more than a fancy termination for a POTS phone line. They run on some trunk lines. This does require some work on the Telco end to make it work. On the Key system, if one line is busy, callers would have to try later or try one of the other lines numbers. The Telco can have it so if the primary number is busy, it will roll over to a secondary number.
On a trunked system, it is entirely diffrent. You can select diffrent numbers of incomming and outgoing trunks. In-comming calls and outgoing calls are placed on the first avaliable trunk. (you may have seen this, Dial 9 to get an outside line, not pick up line 3) Incomming calls as well as outgoing lines are trunked seprately. An example is an order desk using an 800 number. (operators standing by...) Many calls can be received limited by the number of incomming trunk lines and avaliable operators. The call center may have as few as 2 outgoing lines. A telemarketing center may have hundreds of outgoing trunk lines but just a few incomming lines.
Another class of trunk is called DID, for Direct Inward Dial. You most likely have seen this for paging and not known it. A paging company may buy a block of 1,000 phone numbers and have them placed on 20 trunk lines. When you dial the regular phone number to call a pager, it picks up any free trunk line to the paging switch (sometimes as few as 10 trunk DID lines) and the phone company sends the last 3 digits of the dialed number. This way 1,000 phone numbers will fit on 10 or so lines. The calls are short so few callers will experiance a busy.
DID lines are used for many PBX's so you direct dial a department or persons desk without dialing an extension. You can get DID for 1-5 digits to cover 2-100,000 phone numbers. A 1 digit DID does not require reserving all 10 numbers, 2 digit 100 numbers, etc. Getting 20 numbers reserved on a 2 digit DID can be done. My work phone is an example of this. To save on copper wire, all of the trunks can be multiplexed on an ISDN line or dedicated fiber optic line.
Going trunked is overkill for home use. Look for stuff that will work on a POTS line. Some stuff is set up for trunked service and may support DID or ISDN.
Re:What about the Telco side, maybe a dumb a quest (Score:1)
There is also some consideration to be given as to how the PBX picks up the phone lines coming into it. The typical telephone uses loop-start to pickup and line for an outgoing call. However, several older-style PBX systems uses ground-start. You'll need to have your lines configured by the telco depending on what kind you might need.
Repartee is a great Voice Mail system... (Score:3, Informative)
Why? (Score:1)
Humm lets write Slashdot and have the populous write out project plan...
Multiple lines of telemarketers (Score:3, Funny)
-- Terry
Re:Why? (Score:2)
You know, I went to the trouble of putting it in the second line of my submission: "I don't really have a good justification for this; it just sounds like a neat thing to have."
If you people can't be bothered to read two sentences into the story, we're going to have to resort to making the titles longer. And nobody wants that.
The Linux Answering Machine HOWTO (Score:2, Informative)
Feature Wish List (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets not forget about VOVIDA! (Score:2, Informative)
There you'll find a scalable open source softpbx that's scalable to the 5000 phone range. It's got Cisco research dollars pouring into it, and it's currently free. They have a soft client too! This thing has billing modules, h323 compatibility gateways.. Works with Cisco's VERY cool sip phones
It really is aimed at the carrier type people.. but hell..it's pretty easy to get it all running on a P2-450
Take it easy all
Re:Lets not forget about VOVIDA! (Score:1)
Neat stuff.
How about a SIP/VoiceXML Solution (Score:2, Interesting)
Get an analog SIP gateway, like the one sold by mediatrix [mediatrix.com].
Then, a VoiceXML Interpreter [nuance.com].
The calls come in the gateway, and get handled by the interpreter, which runs on standard PC hardware. You can configure the interpreter to run different VoiceXML apps based on the caller ID info. You can specify any kind of voicemail app you want in VoiceXML, complete with touch tone and speech recognition.
While you're at it, you can write other vxml apps accessible only to certain people, verified with biometric voiceprint authentication. Here's a scenario: You forgot your housekey. Your electronic garage door opener, however, is hooked up to an X-10 device.
Computer: Hello, would you like to leave a message?
You: This is Joe Shmoe.
Computer: Voiceprint identified. How can I help you?
You: Open the garage.
BTW, the Nuance interpreter comes free with a 2 port license (handles 2 calls simultaneously). Any more than that, and they start charging. The software includes the speech recognition, voiceprint authentication, and voicexml interpreter.
Neat, eh?
Convert some old Modems (Score:1)
-Simon
Cheap Voicemail & semi-pbx functions.. (Score:1)
www.vocpsystem.com
I'm trying to get it to work for my business so that it pages me depending on which mailbox a message is left in. I know that in theory I can link it into a credit card validator and a bunch of other things but I'm not there yet.
Don't bother - Get a Panasonic system! (Score:2)
It's really a waste of your time if you want to have a reliable, maintainable, system. The price of a small Panasonic keysystem is worth it, and there are plenty of places that support them. You'll end up with a much better solution plus if you're putting this in your house, it'll *increase* the resale value of your house. A roll-your-own solution based on a trash pc will *decrease* the value of your house.
Cybergenie system (Score:1)
You can pick up the complete system off Ebay for about $120 (search for Cybergenie), and there is an updated driver set (3.0) which allows use with WinXP. The manufacturer went out of business several years ago, so there isn't any warrenty. There is a large user base for support, including a dedicated MSN newsgroup (just do a google search for Cybergenie to get links).
It works well, and is relatively inexpensive, and links into my email inbox. Good enough for me.
bbs telecom (Score:3, Interesting)
The low end unit has 3 outside lines and 8 inside, the other 4 outside and
16 inside.
I use it with a voiceworks voicemail system I got for $300 on ebay.
It does have caller ID support and RS232 out, so you could do some call filtering there, but it is not as clean as a PC based would be.
I do really like it, I got it when I built my office and guesthouse and had to have an easy way to share phonelines and intercom. The side result is I only get about 1 telemarketer call every 3 months now, since they never dial through the greeting, and everyone has there own voicemail box. People at my company can also call me at 11PM at my office and not wake the house, totally cool.
I have 2 outside lines and 1 VOIP line plugged into the outside which works
well for all.
The great thing about it is that it uses regular phones and cool keyphones, your choice, and it is analog, so modems and fax machines work well on the inside.
This is definatly the way to go on a budget. Under $500 you should be good to go.
mycal
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Informative)
Two... but that's obviously not the point.
I'm looking for features. Features like programmable voicemail and room-to-room intercomm are easy, and they're available at reasonable cost from companies like Panasonic. But the more complex stuff, like call filtering by caller ID, call forwarding by caller ID, day-night programming, and so on... those are harder. That's why I'm hoping somebody can help me out with building a scriptable, configurable system using off-the-shelf hardware and software as much as possible, and homegrown software where necessary.
I really thought I made this clear in my submission. Maybe I was wrong.
Thanks for this submission (Score:3, Interesting)
I've been wanting to do this in my home for my small business for a while but I've never known how to do it.
The features I really really want are:
1. CallerID being stuffed into a MySQL database.
2. Filtering rules for callerID to serve up special messages for special people.
3. 44.1 16bit message recording. I know it's overkill but I have never found a home based digital answering machine that is even halfway decent quality. Does anyone know of one? I'm using a Sony right now and it's awful.
From then on, everything else is just extra good stuff.
I might keep in touch with you if you don't mind and let you know what I find.
Re:Thanks for this submission (Score:2)
That's another fantastic idea. Program the phone system to send a specific message to my girlfriend: "Honey, I went to the market. If you want anything, press 1 to connect to my cell phone."
I should have entitled this article, "Share your most brilliant phone system ideas."
Re:Thanks for this submission (Score:2)
Because she's a surgical resident and she's uncallable when she's operating. But she always calls home just before the end of her shift.
Assuming you know how my family operates is going to lead you to false conclusions.
This PBX idea for *2* people in a house is about as ludicrous as...
First of all, nobody asked you. I made it clear in my submission that this is just going to be a "for fun" project with no real practical justification.
Secondly, the services that you talk about that are available from the phone company don't even begin to scratch the surface. Can I have the phone company set up a nighttime call white-list such that between certain hours the phone only rings if the caller ID matches a number on the approved list, and all other callers get routed directly to voicemail? Can I establish a global black-list such that calls from certain numbers never ring through* unless the caller enters a code? Can I establish a hunt-down list, based on caller ID, that rings the house first, then my cell phone, then my office? Can I have that hunt-down list automatically change or deactivate during certain hours of the day?
I think you're underestimating the ultimate usefulness-- not to mention just plain gee-whiz-ness-- of a home telephone automation system.
Besides, the phone company wants you to pay through the nose, every month, for the measly selection of services that they do offer. After a year, you've spent several hundred dollars on telephone services. And what do you have to show for it? Nothing at all. I'd rather invest the time and money, then own the equipment.
But then again, I suppose people like you are inevitable. Every "Ask Slashdot" has to have somebody-- or several somebodies-- who pisses in the submitter's Cheerios.
*There's nothing I can do about the policemen's benefit fund calling me. They're technically a charity, and are therefore not regulated as telemarketers. But I don't want to donate, and I don't want to take their calls. Black-list them, they get a polite message that I won't be accepting their calls, and that's the end of that problem.
Re:Thanks for this submission (Score:2)
First of all, I'm getting pretty tired of this "what part of blank do you not understand" thing. It's trite. Find a new expression.
More importantly, though, why did you take my statement out of context? The poster said he thought my idea was ludicrous. I replied that nobody asked him whether it's ludicrous or not.
See? Simple.
Re:Proper audio sampling requires 4x the input fre (Score:2)
If your exchange is digital, 8 khz @ 8-bits is more than enough.
HTH! I can provide references to these limitations, if you want them!
Re:Hmmm (Score:2)
Products like this absolutely do exist, but because they're useful/valuable to businesses, people are selling them at pretty high prices. EG. Brooktrout is a manufacturer of cards that plug into your PC and work with a variety of different software packages that support them. They handle voice mail, voice recognition, and automatic call routing functions, incoming and outgoing faxes, caller ID recognition, etc. Last I checked, though, a Brooktrout board was well over $500, and you still need a software package that works with it. Otherwise, it's just a cool piece of unusable hardware.
By contrast, you can buy a complete PBX system with phone handsets for under $200 on eBay. If you look for older NEC "NEAX" phone systems, for example - you'll occasionally see them going for minimum bids of only $50 or so. These things have battery backup for power outages, pretty much any feature you could want on a phone (day and night + holiday modes, least-cost routing of outgoing long distance calls, automatic wake-up calls in the morning, priority ringing for specific callers, etc.), and if you pick it up in person - you won't get hit with a huge shipping charge on it.
Re:try siemens gigaset (Score:2)
You're luckier than I was. As I said in another post, my Siemens system is in the attic. It shat all over my wireless LAN when I first installed it. (The LAN, I mean. The phones were there first.) I have since replaced them with inexpensive 900 MHz cordless phones.
In case anybody gives a damn, I'm using an Apple AirPort base station with some Macs that are equipped with AirPort cards and internal antennas.
802.11b and 2.4 Ghz Phones (Score:2, Insightful)
I have two access points covering my apartment, one in on 11, the other is on 6. I've avoided getting 2.4 Ghz phones just because no one publishes information as to how flexible the setup options are.
Ideally, you'd have your Airport on 11, and configure your phones to the range between 1 and 6, allowing you to get around any interference from your microwave or neighbors.
Once the phones get within 5 channels of your airport, your 802.11b is going to suffer. Sounds like that's exactly what happened.
Re:try siemens gigaset (Score:1)
Re:Justification (Score:2)
1. Get a cell phone.
2. There is no step 2.
I can't remember the last time I heard of somebody getting a cell phone that didn't include free worldwide long distance. The other night I called Sydney from my home here in North America (I won't get any more specific than that). The cost to me: thirty of the 50 bajillion non-peak minutes that my cell phone provider gives me every month.
And-- this is the best part-- the company picks up the cell phone bill!
I mean seriously, I can see the day coming soon when long distance charges are abolished. Local phone service has been deregulated, so there's competition for your local phone number now. All it'll take is for one newcomer to offer unlimited free worldwide long distance for the low, low price of $N a month, and that'll be it.
Re:Justification (Score:1)
CA seems to have better coverage, but the quality can be spotty so I'm not sure I'd replace my land line there either.
Re:Justification (Score:2)
AT&T. Since it's a company account, though, I'm not sure which plan I have, exactly. But my girlfriend has an AT&T personal phone, and she also has free worldwide LD, so it's obviously available to everybody.