Have a potential new client that needs a new phone system and loves our FreePBX capabilities. The catch is that they just signed a 2 year contract for 6 analog lines with the local ILEC (at $50 / line / month none-the-less!!!). So we are going old school and will put a premise PBX in place with and FXO card to accept the ILEC analog lines, until that contract is up in 20 months, then convert them to the “standard” hosted solution. Today however, their old Nortel is dying and we need to get a new premise PBX in ASAP.
I am comfortable with the “server hardware”, but not with the FXO port card. From the Sangoma store there are several options, but I do not know what we really need based upon the specs of those options.
You could also consider a small ATA gateway in front of the FreePBX box. I loved to use the FXO/FXS and ISDN cards, but it’s now no longer worth the effort as you typically have to compile the drivers against a supported version of the Linux kernel.
I agree with @sholinaty on the GXW; it sells for less than $300 vs. ~$800 for the Vega. However, in unusual circumstances, the Vega echo cancellation is superior to the GXW. IMO, get
(you’ll have it tomorrow), hook it up and confirm that there are no echo or other issues. If the GXW is problematic, try the Vega (you can always return the GXW). If that also causes trouble, look at switching to SIP trunks. Even including the ETF on the POTS contract, it may be less expensive. You may want to keep one POTS line as a backup for when your power or internet is out.
Was this an ILEC in a rural area? No major like ATT or Verizon is installing true analog lines. They may give you an analog handoff but the line isn’t analog.
I believe the UK is behind the USA, but the UK was planning to go VoIP to the premises by 2025, although that has now been delayed a year or two. Copper presentation will be ADSL, and probably fibre to the cabinet.
Aug 2nd 2022 is the turn down of analog services. Digital can still happen. Dealt with three different customers in Verizon land that had POTS installed. All over fiber with analog handoffs.
I use cloud-based installs of FreePBX and SIP trunks. I have a dozen+ clients set up this way. The plan is to port their numbers to the SIP trunk. However, as an interim step, I set up temporary numbers on the SIP trunk and forward each of their numbers. FreePBX Incoming Routes is configured to recognized both the temp numbers and the real numbers so when the porting actually happens, it is seamless to the client.
Normally this forwarding process usually lasts only about a week or so until the numbers are ported. But so what if it’s 20 months. The temp numbers are only about $1 each per month so you would be looking at less than $10 / month to do this. And a cloud based PBX can be set up in a few hours or so, depending on their complexity. And there is no server equipment, gateways, etc to buy.