Using VoIP to Connect Phones Between Offices? 65
virtualPhoneWire asks: "My office is expanding to include a new facility which is just a few hundred feet just across the parking lot. The building is just far enough away to make running cable a pain in the neck, so to get data over there, we're setting up an 802.11b link, and a couple of simple Linux routers to handle the traffic, no problem. Now, the people in this new building are going to need access to our phone system, a simple Avaya Partner II key system. I would like to think that there is a way that I can patch them into our switch using some kind of
VoIP technology. The ideal being that we can issue a couple of IP phones that plug into the Ethernet back-bone, take their queue from my DHCP server, and linkup with a device on the other end that ties them into switch thus giving them access like any other phone. As an after thought, being able to give other people on our network, both inside the building and via our VPN, access to this gateway to
make calls would be a real bonus. We're considering an upgrade to a real PBX, but we would like to do this without blowing the pension plan. We would like to having something scaleable, and open source, if possible. Any thoughts?"
call your system vendor (Score:3, Informative)
I looked at some voip quotes recently, one of the systems required lisences to be bought to use the phones over IP. Something like Four thousand for 10 phones. I think avaya has a module you can put in to your rack, and plug into your switch (its designed to also do power-over-ethernet injection. Be aware, the phones are going to cost you an arm and a leg.
Re:call your system vendor (Score:3, Insightful)
Again, I don't know what your phone system is, but this might work if it can support these phones.
Re:call your system vendor (Score:1)
The poster of the article is deal with a very small system here.
Agreed. (Score:2)
a) Hope that Avaya supports VoIP with Partner. I don't remember if it does. Back when I worked for Lucent BCS (Before it spun off to Avaya), VoIP was bleeding edge and Lucent was still developing their VoIP systems.
b) If Avaya doesn't support VOiP with their Partner systems, you'll most likely have to junk the Partner system and get a key system that does do VoIP.
a) is more likely, since I recall the Partner being reasonably expandable, albeit nowhere close to the venerable Definity - Its expandability has allowed the platform to survive for over 20 years and still be one of the best PBX systems out the. (Definity was one of the first implementations of hot-swappable hardware - Swapping circuit packs in/out of a running system was a favorite demo to customers when the system was first introduced.)
As another poster mentioned, the Definity (He refers to it as G3, which is just the current variant of the Definity platform) can be given VoIP capability. Not sure at what size company a Definity becomes justifiable - My company started at around 80-100 people at 2 locations and had a Definity, but that could be partly because of anticipated growth and the fact that it was a Lucent spinoff. We're now a part of a different large company.) We had direct dialing-by-extension between Warren, NJ and Columbus, OH via a VoIP connection. I believe we now have VoIP links to other company locations too.
on second thought. (Score:3, Informative)
this will cost like 1000 usd.
normally, a channel bank will go for 400-600.
Possible source (Score:4, Informative)
If you are not inclined to roll your own, I do recommend Nortel's solutions, quite possibly because they tended to be the most relaible to use.
Re:Possible source (Score:2)
I used to work for a company that did solutions like that. What we normally did was use ISA Micom cards (FXS). Micom are now owned by Nortel, and last I checked there were thousands of these cards still available through distributers.
Long shot here, but I'd like to talk to you more about this. Can you email me?
Hardwire it (Score:4, Insightful)
--Mike--
Re:Hardwire it (Score:3, Insightful)
There's no reason they can't/won't be able to get a landline from the phone company for like a fax or local/emergency line.
Lots of offices have the occasional _seperate_ line for things like faxes, local calling and/or 911.
-davidu
Re:Hardwire it (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Hardwire it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hardwire it (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hardwire it (Score:1)
Wireless VoIP (Score:1)
Solutions for Voice Over IP (Score:2, Informative)
They are the makers of Asterisk PBX and they'll probably have a solution for you. Going the IP phone route is probably more expensive, unless you have a small office and are _NOT_ planning to grow.
Two asterisk boxes and a channel bank would be much more scaleable and cheaper. RJS
Re:Solutions for Voice Over IP (Score:2)
Oh... and, uh... it's opensource, too. Bonus.
Wha? Huh? (Score:1, Insightful)
What's with all this cabling talk? Never heard of a WAN?
Now, the people in this new building are going to need access to our phone system, a simple Avaya Partner II key system.
So how much would it cost for your phone co to hook this up?
I would like to think that there is a way that I can patch them into our switch using some kind of VoIP technology. The ideal being that we can issue a couple of IP phones that plug into the Ethernet back-bone, take their queue from my DHCP server, and linkup with a device on the other end that ties them into switch thus giving them access like any other phone. As an after thought, being able to give other people on our network, both inside the building and via our VPN, access to this gateway to make calls would be a real bonus.
You want to become your own phone company? Besides the initial investment costs, do you have the money to hire someone on to babysit the phone system?
We're considering an upgrade to a real PBX, but we would like to do this without blowing the pension plan.
Are your employees aware of how little money you have? Seriously, if you are expanding at a rate that requires you to lease new office space across multiple buildings, maybe you have enough money to leave this to the pros.
We would like to having something scaleable, and open source, if possible. Any thoughts?
Yeah. Don't skimp on the communications.
Re:Wha? Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's with all this cabling talk? Never heard of a WAN?
MAN not WAN and 802.11b bridges are a pretty good way to do this in a campus environment where ripping up pavement isn't an option.
So how much would it cost for your phone co to hook this up?
How much would it cost in monthly interoffice calls each month is the more important question
You want to become your own phone company? Besides the initial investment costs, do you have the money to hire someone on to babysit the phone system?
It's called a PBX and since the majority of most offices traffic is internal it saves huge cash over POTS lines.
Are your employees aware of how little money you have? Seriously, if you are expanding at a rate that requires you to lease new office space across multiple buildings, maybe you have enough money to leave this to the pros.
PBX's often have large upfront costs that can be prohibitive for a small business because the chasis are designed for a much larger size then the client needs.
http://www.linuxtelephony.com/ (Score:4, Informative)
Re:http://www.linuxtelephony.com/ (Score:1)
Phreaks (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Phreaks (Score:3, Informative)
Check out SpectraLink (Score:1)
I used to work there and they have various solutions in the VOIP space and have equipment that talks to various switches with both wireless and (I think) wired VOIP phones
Re:Check out SpectraLink (Score:1)
Success Story (Score:1, Funny)
VoIP (Score:3, Informative)
Cisco bought a VoIP software company a few years back and has open sourced all of the software necessary to setup a VoIP solution on your own. The website is vovida.org. Also, O'Reilly sells a book (referenced on the vovida.org website) that describes how to use vovida.org to setup a solution.
You will still need to buy some hardware. VoIP phones or VoIP phone software will be needed for the new building. VoIP phones are between $200-???/unit. The phone software is cheaper and essentially gives you a softphone. There are free softphones for linux, for windows, you can purchase them for under $100 I believe.
I don't know how difficult to setup the free voip software is, it is probably best to pay someone to support a solution for you. Be sure to shop around, we encountered many subpar vendors. Also, PBX solution providers get pretty cooperative when you start talking about VoIP. It really depends on how many phone lines you require and what your future plans are. If you planned on upgrading your data network or expanding, VoIP can fit nicely into those plans. But if you only need to add 10 phone lines, then it would seem kind of drastic unless you are going VoIP company wide. Since we lease all our lines and want to upgrade our data network anyway, VoIP will save us alot of $$$. The quicker payback also saves us alot of $$$. The scalability also saves us alot of $$$. We can just buy what we need.
You just need a way to get a few lines over a wireless link from the sound of it. I hope this helps a little.
Maybe you could patch something together from vovida.org for those few lines. Check it out.
wireless security. (Score:1)
Re:wireless security. (Score:1)
You have to linux routers ==> You have two linux routers
You strong encryption on the router-router ==> Use strong encryption on the router-router
etc.
Cisco FXO Card (Score:3, Informative)
If it were me, I would run cable.
Re:Cisco FXO Card (Score:2)
I am bumping in to this right now at home. I have local service from Southwestern Bell, which I terminate in a VIC-2FXO in my Cisco 1750. I am using Cisco's IOS Telephony Services to switch calls to a handful of Cisco IP phones. Of course, I have Call Waiting.
My Call Waiting beeps, and I have no way to send a hookflash to the PSTN from an IP Phone.
I was informed that a softkey with the ability to "send hookflash" will be coming to ITS around February of 2003. This will meet my needs, and people in situations as you describe. (assuming they are using ITS)
In Cisco IOS, Hookflash Relay does operate propely in an FXS-to-FXO setup; so it works from my cordless phone (hanging off of a VIC-2FXS).
VoIP Bandwidth and Leased Line Alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
If the throughput of wireless Ethernet is the same as wireline, and by throughput we're not talking about the burst speed of the link, then an 802.11b link should be able to support one T1 worth of voice channels, or twelve simultaneous conversations. If RF interference reduces the throughput, your mileage may vary.
Another alternative is to lease a T1 qualified two twisted pair copper line between the two buildings from the phone company. Other posts are mentioning using channel banks at either end of the line. With leasing, the cost and pain of digging et al belongs to the local phone company. It may be worth the monthly rate for 100 feet to avoid that.
Cordless? (Score:2, Interesting)
Or, if the call rate is low, a cell phone could work...
QSig (Score:1)
I have installed around 40 PBX PBX systems this way and its so easy because all newish PBX systems support QSIG
wildcard (Score:1)
Re:wildcard (Score:1)
From the page:
Terabeam's 1550 nanometer FSO and 60 GHz MMW systems deliver carrier-grade performance, flexible and quick deployment.
Bandwidth: FE, OC-3/STM-1, OC-12/STM-4
802.11a (Score:1)
As for the VoIP solution, look at shoreline [shoretel.com], they have a nice selection of VoIP solutions that use standard analog phones as well as soft phones.
Re:802.11a (Score:1)
Re:802.11a (Score:2)
Hardwire (Score:3, Informative)
Unless you plan on replacing your entire phone system, you're probably going to have problems interfacing the IP phones with your existing stuff, and even if you can do that without trouble, you're going to get really stuck when you put it all on that 802.11b link and start having problems. By the time you get enough *good* wireless hardware and routers to handle the link properly, you'll have spent an awful lot of money. Also, as others have mentioned you'll have problems meeting fire and safety codes without land-lines over there anyway, and building-to-building calls would be free with local phone service anyway.
Anyway, my main point is that in the long run, it will not be cost effective to bridge the parking lot with wireless and VoIP versus a buried fiber "extension cord" type setup. If you were a mile away or running across a major street or something, it would be highly cost effective.
If you decide to go for it anyway, here's a couple of suggestions:
1) Don't think VoIP phones. Think VoIP bridges. A couple of channel banks on either end of whatever network link you have should allow you to interface remote phones directly with your PBX. Contact your vendor about it. Hint: Don't mention wireless; say ethernet and fiber instead. Adtran has some inexpensive stuff in this arena.
2) Don't think 802.11b. It's not going to cut it. Get something along the line of the WyLAN or Proxim equipment that's designed to be a point-to-point ethernet bridge. You'll get performance almost an order of magnitude higher than 802.11b with a something like the 12mb proxim system vs 11mb 802.11b. This is a very important consideration. Do not ignore this suggestion.
3) Put real routers at either end of your bridge. Do not rely on crap 802.11b linksys network bridges or something similar. You will need real routers to do the very important job of QoS. If you have voice running over the network, they MUST be able to properly prioritize all traffic. All of the inexpensive consumer wireless products that advertise QoS will likely be unsuitable for your applicaiton. Get some cisco equipment on either end and be happy.
~GoRK
Re:Hardwire (Score:2)
Multitech's MultiVOIP (Score:2)
For a ready-made setup, checkout Multitech's [multitech.com] MultiVOIP [multitech.com]
These units aren't the cheapest VOIP solution, but among the easiest. They come in FXO and FXS flavors, which means (check me on this) you can hookup one end to a phone company provided POTS line (FXO?) and extend that to a remote location (FXS?), or hookup one side to your PBX and another to a POTS phone at the remote office (both FXS?), or PBX-to-PBX (??), or whatever.
The have a demo [multitech.com]. You call a toll-free number which rings into a MultiVOIP device co-lo'd at some ISP in Chillicothe, OH (I've been to Chillicothe - it's sufficiently remote to convince me that it would work beautifully over a half-decent connection). That device connects you to a (very nice, I might add) sales rep at Multitech.
Re:Multitech's MultiVOIP (Score:1)
Another great product but probably more than you want to hook up to a Partner II is the MCK [mck.com]line of products. We hooked up MCK up over a wireless ISP to a cable connection and used the console phone on the remote end without any problems. Of course the quality of this particlar connect meant you wouldn't want to have more than a couple simultaneous calls but it was enough to convince customers that their T1 should be just fine for bandwidth. They have setups for several different vendors of phone switches.
O.T.
There is a movie that you reminded me of when you mentioned Chillicothe, OH. It is called Chillicothe and is available from Hollywood Video for rent or from the website [blueyonderfilms.com]. It's pretty funny.
Which way to skin this cat... (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:802.11 cordless phones (Score:3, Informative)
In addition to Symbol (as you mentioned), Spectralink makes 802.11b wireless IP phones [spectralink.com] as well.
Cisco's 7920 Wireless IP phone will be coming out end of 1QCY2003, but out of the gate will only be supported in a Cisco CallManager [cisco.com] environment. The Product Manager did a presentation a few weeks back here in STL, and the plans they have for the product are pretty neat (again, assuming you are in a CCM environment).
I plan on using them with Asterisk [asteriskpbx.com] and my 802.11 access point.
I'm using Asterisk at home as my IVR & Voicemail System, with Cisco's IOS Telephony Services [cisco.com] (ITS) handling the actual call switching. ITS can scale up to 48 phones depending on the Cisco router platform you have. I'd actually prefer to us Cisco's Unity [cisco.com] product as my IVR & Voicemail--but frankly, I'm too cheap to introduce that at home. Asterisk is, as you know, zero cost.
I like zero cost.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:802.11 cordless phones (Score:2)
Sure, it can. I'm not interested in using it for that, for a number of reasons.
Asterisk seems geared towards leveraging Linejack and Phonejack, which would mean additional investment and usage of plain old analog phones. (Most) analog phones lack the "oh cool" factor of a Cisco 7960G IP Phone, which I already owned. This was just my take--I don't really know for sure. I'm much more comfortable with Cisco gear than Asterisk.
The only negative to Asterisk is that you need a plugin to support H.323; it's not supported out of the gate. I used asterisk-oh323, which I found on Freshmeat (after a LOT of searching on Google).
Check out Altigen (Score:1)
I'm pretty sure that your local telco can set up a "hardwire" connection between your two offices. I'm not sure of the terminology anymore, but I believe it to be exceptionally reasonable.
But, c'mon, have you considered the benefits of having cable draped across a 100' span? Christmas lights, anyone?
GNU Gatekeeper (Score:2)
I can see it now: (Score:4, Funny)
Linux + voice modem = cheap VoIP? (Score:2)
Or have they, and I just haven't found it yet?
Matt
don't do it captain (Score:1)