I have a customer with an Avaya that is connected to the PSTN via a PRI. The Pri line goes down occasionally leaving the business offline until its repaired. I also have services on the same premise via my freepbx environment and offer analog lines to my clients via grandstream gxw4248. I know I could add (2) analog lines to the avaya as “co lines” and enable them to ring particular extensions and maybe setup simultaneous ring so calls go to the analog lines sand the PRI so eithe rone can provide the call? (not sure how it would work if the analog line was busy), but my question is how can I setup a connection from my FreePBX to the avaya that would be more like a PRI or connect a “trunk” to the avaya so it sends ANI/DNIS number info to the switch?
Is it as simple as adding a grandstream PRI device in place of a gxw4248? I believe this would put out a PRI which I could setup as a redundant PRI on the Avaya?
You can definitely connect the Avaya to the FreePBX via a PRI gateway.
I assume your Avaya is not licensed for SIP otherwise you would be using it. H323 is also a good option to connect the two.
What kind of Avaya is this?
I dont know if its licensed for SIP, its my customers avaya, I dont have access to its config. They have a PRI on it and I want to add my FreePBX or my Telnyx account to it as a backup (SIp or otherwise). Not sure how we would configure the phone lines to use the T1 Pri as primary and then my link as a backup.
I assume that when operating normally, each Avaya extension is directly reachable on its own DID.
You are at the mercy of the carrier supplying the PRI. If they are willing (at reasonable cost) to forward on unavailable to SIP, the failover calls will come directly to your Asterisk and you can route them through your gateway to the Avaya.
Next best, if they forward to a PSTN number and include diversion info (the originally dialed number), just get a SIP trunk from a provider who will pass the diversion info on to you.
Otherwise, if they will only forward to PSTN without diversion info, you have two choices: Get a block of however many DIDs they have from a VoIP provider (likely not cheap), or forward all calls to a single number and sort the calls with an IVR or human receptionist.
Carrier is windstream. The circuit goes out several times a year and its usually down for several days, When it goes down IT calls windstream and it takes 24-48 hours to enable call forwarding to a cell phone and then when the lines is fixed its another 24 hrs to remove it. When the line goes out the smartjack is still green so I assume the issue is in windstream and not the last mile (verizon, or the vpn/pvc). So I believe its not the copper form CO to premise. To my understanding if its goes down they only need 2 DID’s to work. Management main number and Security (signs posted all over property with number to call for help)… I suggested adding (2) Grandstream gxp2170’s and call forwarding on failure or at least simultaneous ring for the (2) numbers. I could easily add 2 analog lines to the Avaya from my GXW4248 and they would program this to ring the same (2) extensions but I would rather a Pri or SIP solution with DNIS/ANI and near seamless inbound/outbound calls if PRI goes down. In actuality their IT department uses another 3rd party to manage/program the Avaya. I have a very good relationship with the IT group so they would make that 3rd party implement my connection if I come up with a good backup solution.
If the customer can get reliable internet access, the IP Office can handle a SIP trunk if they pay the right-to-use fee. A PRI that goes down for days is unacceptable and would be sufficient cause for breaking a contract with Windstream. It is certainly easy to port numbers to a VOIP carrier such as BulkVS, Skyetel or ClearlyIP for reliable service. That would also save the customer a ton of money.
i’m not 100% sure the “outage” isn’t a billing issue some times. The PBX is local and the IT department is in the middle of the country and the accounting department is on the other side of the country. I don’t think the paying of the bill is a “priority” for the receiving department. Big company, too many departments involved in the process including multiple levels of approvals for getting bills paid even for a monthly utility. Then the billing department moved and I am sure at least twice in the last year the outage was the bill wasn’t paid on time.