Deskphone extention

i am clueless at to what kind of phone to get for my work we are working on building a new VOIP system form currently using a old PBX system do i need a phone with as many sip accounts as we are adding to the server?

we are planning 7 sip accounts 5 from Comcast and 2 from google

No you don’t need sip accounts for each trunks. Most people don’t need more than 1 at Max 2 SIP accounts on a phone. Each SIP account let’s you register a different and unique extension.

I suggest for ease of use and best integration into FreePBX to use Sangoma Phones. Since they are manufactured from the same company that builds and maintains FreePBX.

Steve,

Let me drop you a few clues:

  • Your PBX is an appliance and connects phones in your enterprise with phones out in the world. If you want to start with FreePBX, you can do that, but you will still need phones.
  • The phones you choose are a wide open set of options. Obviously, with Sangoma as our “corporate sponsor” buying Sangoma phones is clearly a popular option.

Note that I used the term “phones” to describe the instrument that sits on the desk.

  • In the olden days, a phone would get a phone number. Since each phone had it’s own number, each one would require a line coming into the building or a channel on a T1. They were handled as discrete pieces of the system whether there was a PBX In the line or not.
  • Since the advent of SIP and Asterisk (which is the telephony component of FreePBX), we have “virtualized” those lines. You can still use a T1 (with the right interface) or you can connect your internet connection to the PBX and use normal IP traffic rules to get phone calls in and out.
  • In the olden days, a group of one or more lines was called a “Trunk”. Your trunk was made up of these lines, and you have one line for every number and one line for every possible phone call. When you ran out of lines in your trunk, callers would get a busy signal.
  • In VOIP, a trunk is still the old style trunk if you are using individual phone lines or a T1. It is also something else - a connection to your Internet Telephony Service Provider’s inbound and outbound connections.
  • In the olden days, a phone line had a number of Direct InDial numbers (usually one). The “line” (not the number) determined where the call went. With SIP, all of your numbers from your provider come in on the same “line” (since it’s through the Internet). All the numbers are presented to your FreePBX system. These numbers get sorted by your “incoming routes”.

So, there are a few differences between and old PBX and a FreePBX system. You can connect FreePBX to the T1 or phone lines you are currently using (which means that the carrier you are using remains).

  • Completely separately (or to replace your old connection), your number can be handled by an ITSP. All of the numbers associated with them are on “your account”. Your account is then associated with one or more trunks, where each trunk is associated with the IP address of your providers server. These “trunks” then deliver calls to your machine. The call has a DID associated with it that the FreePBX server sorts in something called an “incoming route”.

So, the short answer to your question is “it depends”. If you are going to continue to use the connections that are on your old PBX, you can do that. If you want to set up VOIP connections and go through the Internet, you’ll need an account onto which you will put DIDs, which will be delivered from one or more servers to your PBX, which are then sorted out by the PBX and are then sent to one of about 30 possible destinations (IVR, phones, voice mails, etc.).

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