HI everyone i am beginning the planning process to build and deploy a freepbx system. I volunteer for a small nonprofit agency who has a minimal IT budget they have a 20 years old hand me down PBX system that is at max and of lately it is beginning to fail i was just quoted 500 for just a new extension card. I have talked with my Director and he wanted me to begin researching the process at present we are under contract with Comcast business who has gifted us internet and 5 phone lines at the shelter and 2 phone line and internet at our admin office at present we are focusing on the shelters for the new phone system.
Ok now my question i trying to understand the most cost effective way of connecting my 4 analog voice and 1 analog fax line to the FreePBX box that i am designing.
the Server Build (this was a old Netmax Firewall build)in a ITX case
i3-2120 3.30GHz
16GB
Dual 500Gig Drives
Dual realtek gigabit network cards
If you presently use a physical fax machine and are satisfied with that solution, I recommend connecting it directly to the analog fax line (FreePBX is not involved at all). Otherwise, please describe your desired fax setup.
If you can arrange it as a ‘gift’, consider having Comcast change your voice service to SIP; see https://business.comcast.com/phone/sip-trunks . You won’t need any special hardware and you’ll enjoy better voice quality, faster call setup times and some other technical advantages. A disadvantage is that if your PBX is down, the service won’t work at all (incoming calls could forward to staff cell phones or voicemail). You could have an analog phone connected to the fax line for making 911 or other urgent calls if the PBX isn’t working.
I really hate the who fax machine thing in the building LOL I would love to do email to fax and fax to email
I kind of figured i would be needing a FX0 gateways can you use multiple FX0 gateways to combine 7 lines do you know if the sip is cost effective as i think we are now paying for services i’d need to ask my admin staff what our bill is per month for the 5 lines pule 25 meg internet
You should first find the details of your Comcast contract. If they are donating service, perhaps they’ll also donate it in SIP form (or you’ll need some FXO interfaces). If you’re paying full retail price, you should consider porting the numbers to an inexpensive SIP provider. If it’s something in between (you’re getting a substantial discount), we need to look at the costs, administrative hassle to switch providers, etc. The price of Comcast internet may be higher if you don’t get voice from them, so that’s another factor to consider.
If you are committed for a term, get the details on time remaining, early termination costs, etc.
Also, are the admin offices in a different building? If so, how far away? If you’re stuck with analog lines but can get them delivered to the same location, 8-port FXO cards and FXO gateways are available at reasonable cost.
I am sure we are locked into so sort of contract term but i am still doing my fact finding before i present all this to the board for approval and yes my admin office is located 2 miles away in another building they have comcast voip with a 2 line ata and this is another huge issue where admin is unable to transfer call to us at the shelter so we need to configure 3 extensions over at the admin office and then bring all the phone lines into the freepbx on 7 fxo port either using a card or if i can swing it some sort of external gateway so i can use a sweat looking shuttle case media pc that i use to use for my home media server LOL looking at a few devices let me know if one is better than the others
If your using FreePBX why not support the company that is providing this great product free of charge to you and buy Sangoma Analog cards or our Vega Gateways. Shame to have you buy from a competitor that does nothing to keep the project afloat.
i absolutely agree with supporting this great product, would you be willing to donate the hardware? I am paying for this server out of my own personal money and i am low income disabled vetern so i have to keep it cheep but functional figuring my whole budget is about 400 that is if i have to buy a refurbished computer form newegg and the gateways form eBay or amazon I did say i was building this for a homeless shelter. I still need to figure out where i am scrounging up 15 IP pones for this whole project too
so i have to keep it cheep but functional figuring my whole budget is about 400 that is if i have to buy a refurbished computer form newegg and the gateways form eBay or amazon I did say i was building this for a homeless shelter. I still need to figure out where i am scrounging up 15 IP pones for this whole project too 