Any Asterisk Users?

[Dean Roddey]

Oops, missed that somehow. I just approved it.

[batwater]

I agree that the hardest part was getting the Obi working correctly with the Asterisk server. All the info you need is out there, but it is in several different blog posts and a little confusing to follow.

In my case I was fixated on thinking I needed to set up a trunk between Asterisk and the Obi, wrong. Stepped away from the config battle for dinner and had an epiphany while talking with my wife...

For my use case I Should have been focused on setting up extensions for each of the phone lines, ding, less than 5 minutes after going back at it I was up and running. Funny thing is that I had configured the "demo" extension as a phone line instead of going to the voice attendant for some reason but did that at the same time I set the trunk up.

The trunk connection is for using the Obi as a service provider, say you config Google voice on it instead of the Asterisk server (one of the blog posts I referenced.) I kept everything on the Asterisk server to simplify Caller ID look up since Google Voice does't come in with a CID and my voip provider charges for the lookup.

I saw an article somewhere that stated there would be over 1 billion voip users by 2014 based on current trends, traditional telcos have to be scared by this trend. Looking where my own phone bill will end up, I'll have 2 lines (only have 1 right now) I'm looking at an average of around $6/month. Payback after the equipment investment against my current $19/month with Vonage is only 6 months and I now have incredible flexibility.

I've been on VOIP for 8+ years as a Vonage customer but I'm now hooked on Asterisk and like Brian I went the Incredible PBX (PBX in a Flash) setup from Nerd Vittles the "Incredible Pi", the gui really does make this approachable, even with the gui there is still alot to learn but they have excellent instructions on their site. Several family members are interested in cutting their bills as well, my dad for example will drop from $40/month to $6ish...

-Ben

[jkish]

I would jump on this if I knew everything would work out in the end.

Previously I have dabbled around and have both an Obi 110 and 202. I wanted to try and do this incrementally but ran into problems with CallerId and Call Waiting Id being passed through the Obi 110 correctly. I spent hours trying to get it to work by trying all sorts of configs on the Obi and phone side, but finally gave up.

My setup with AT&T is a 3 line ringmaster - 1 line home, 1 line business, 1 line business fax for ~$40 a month. I can't port any of these numbers out until I turn off the ringmaster so it is hard to maintain service during that time. To get started, I created a couple of Google Voice accounts and they forward to my business and business fax lines. That way, I could publish the GV phone numbers and get customers moved from the old ringmaster numbers.

Things I need:

911
Caller ID
Call Waiting ID
Distinctive Ring

The CallerID requirement on the business line probably means I need to port that number from GV to another provider.

Looking forward to reading more How-Tos to get a better sense of whether I can pull this off.

[batwater]

I would jump on this if I knew everything would work out in the end.

Things I need:

911
Caller ID
Call Waiting ID
Distinctive Ring

The CallerID requirement on the business line probably means I need to port that number from GV to another provider.

Looking forward to reading more How-Tos to get a better sense of whether I can pull this off.

911 becomes e911, I'll have this through voip.ms, which gets directed via dial plan configuration, have to figure this out stilll...

CallerID, Call Waiting ID and distinctive ring can all be done through Asterisk. the PBXIAF that Brian and I are using has all of this stuff built in.

You are correct, Google does not provide Caller ID however for inbound you can have PBXIAF look it up against may free sources.

For migration I got a new number through voip.ms to figure everything out. In my case the new number will become my fax line. Once I have all of the dots connected and working to my satisfaction with the new line I'll port our home # from Vonage to voip.ms.

Voip.ms is very inexpensive though not the cheapest, their tech support so far has been suburb, they have been able to answer every question I've had promptly; they will even provide free technical assistance to help you set up Asterisk with their service if you need it. To get started with this provider you deposit $25 in your "phone account" order a new DID # of your choice (phone #) and then start connecting the dots. It's .50 for a new line setup and .99/month for the line. Everything else is pay for usage. e911 for this company is $1.50 / month. Sorry if this sounds like I'm gushing about this provider but they have just been first rate and that's so rare now days...

-Ben