I’m wanting to setup a satellite office that uses the FXO lines already installed in that office. The issue I’m having is that I have the FXS lines coming into my office freepbx box (about 2 miles away from the satellite) and I want the analog phones to be connected to the main office’s FreePBX system.
In my mind I visualize that I will likely need x 2 freepbx servers:
Office Box: will have FXO and FXS cards installed
Satellite box: will have FXO cards only (and will get service from office box).
Appart from installing the OS/FreePBX Distro I’ve no clue where to begin. Where do I start with the configuration of either the satellite and office servers?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Please note: I’m not really a computer guy, so forgive me if my question is posted in a non-telcom manner.
I’ll try to locate the area of the wiki that describes.
Not sure i understand what you mean by "self proclaimed leet…"
LeeTV is a short version of my full name.
Just read the wiki, no matter how many times you ask , if you connect your phones to an FXO port it just won’t work very well. How about you just read the wiki and forget about the internet for right now, you are after all a self proclaimed leet, right?
Thank you both of your for your reply.
Dicko: I was trying to browse the wiki, but couldnt locate intertubes.
Stonet: My satellite office has freePBX box and FXO cards installed. can I just connect the analog phones to the cards and conenct both office and satellie boxes (via vpn). Or do i need to obtain additional hardware (i.e. FXO SIP gateways – can the FreePBX act as a gateway with the FXO cards installed?)
Put an FXO SIP Gateway in the suboffice to terminate the exchange lines that go in there and have the Gateway talk to your main officefreepbx system over the Internet. Grandstream do some reasonably priced Gateways that work well. You can have your SIP phones at the sub office connect to the freepbx system at the main office over the Internet. For security reasons I would advise a VPN tunnel between the two offices to carry all this SIP traffic. If you don’t do that you need to be very security concious and make sure everything is properly firewalled and passwords are very strong.
It’s all in the wiki, telephone instruments connect to FXS ports, telephone lines connect to FXO ports, pbx-pbx trunking can connect PBX to PBX over the intertubes.
“So I assume you want to hook up analog phones to the FreePBX box, they will get a local dial tone and be able to call extensions and make outbound calls via the PSTN lines at main office?” Yes.
The Satellite office has 2 pair wire. The landlord won’t let us add/rewire as we’re only on a month-to-month lease. I have 3 cards (FXS) from an older box with 4 ports on each FXS card (so ample cards/FXS ports). However there are only 3 analog phones we’ll need to hook up to the FXS.
(I’m a nurse practitioner and definitely not a telcom guy, yet i’m not intimidated by learning this stuff–actually it’s kinda cool.)
With regards to the VPN: From what i understand I would need to set that from the router-to-router (another technology to sink my teeth into) (I’ve not seen a VPN option in freepbx yet).
Yes, you have to be clearer. Are you hooking phone lines to the box or analog telephones or both?
You do mention that you have some analog telephones, you say you want them to connect to main office, can I assume they are at the branch? Why do these phones need to connect to main office (I assume that means physically connect)? What I assume you want to accomplish is to be able to use the analog lines and call extensions at Main office from Satellite office.
In either case it really doesn’t matter. Just get them working as a stand alone box and then build an IAX trunk between them and route calls as you need between the boxes.
The main Office: PSTN is connected to to the FreePBX box via (FSO) card. The office has all SIP phones and faxes.
Satellite: has pre-wired phones for analog. The wiring at the satellite office routes to an empty phone closet (there are labeled wires hanging through a hole in the wall of the closet and COAX cable for broadband device). My gut tells me that I only need to get another FreePBX box and put in an FXO card then to plug in the phone lines to the FXO card. Then somehow connect the two FreePBX boxes together. Then the satellite office will be able to call the main office and vice versa. The bit I really struggle with is the ‘technology’ to create the ‘connection’ between the two FreePBX boxes; however, I’ll be sure to lookup more in the wiki with regards to IAX trunks (this is all new to me-and quite intriguing). Thanks for posting a reply. Very much appreciated.
All that and I still don’t know what you want to do.
When you say “Pre wired phones for analog” are you saying that there is CAT 3 cable and only 1 or 2 pairs to each work station?
So I assume you want to hook up analog phones to the FreePBX box, they will get a local dial tone and be able to call extensions and make outbound calls via the PSTN lines at main office?
If this is a correct assumption you need an FXS port for every analog phone you intend to connect.
If this is more than 4 phones I think you will find the cost of the FXS cards prohibitive.
Moving along further, you are going to need CAT 5e cable anyway for data so why not wire the new satellite office properly and then connect IP phones back to main office via a VPN? I think your users will be much happier with this configuration.
All that and I still don’t know what you want to do.
When you say “Pre wired phones for analog” are you saying that there is CAT 3 cable and only 1 or 2 pairs to each work station?
So I assume you want to hook up analog phones to the FreePBX box, they will get a local dial tone and be able to call extensions and make outbound calls via the PSTN lines at main office?
If this is a correct assumption you need an FXS port for every analog phone you intend to connect.
If this is more than 4 phones I think you will find the cost of the FXS cards prohibitive.
Moving along further, you are going to need CAT 5e cable anyway for data so why not wire the new satellite office properly and then connect IP phones back to main office via a VPN? I think your users will be much happier with this configuration.
The specification of 10Base-T surprisingly does allow it over 2 pair uncatagorized provided certain limits are met. if the length is not too much you would be surprised that you can go 10mps over what you have quite satisfactorily.
Dicko is absolutely right. Just make sure to lock it in to 10M Half Duplex.
I would get a Cisco Catalyst switch off eBay should be about $20.00 for a WS-C3524-XL-EN that is fully managed (ability to set the parameters of each ports and check performance). It even has a Web GUI for the command line challenged.
Personally I would not do the second box at the satellite office. I would put a Cisco chassis in with a 12 ports switch card, an 8 port FXS and terminate the broadband right to it. You could create a VPN back to main office and call it a day.
This solution, is wrong for you for two reasons:
1 - Investment in FXS boards
2 - Lack of knowledge of Cisco IOS
The insane prices for recent, used Cisco gear gives any size business access to Enterprise features.
Even easier if you go the 10base-T route is just use sip phones with a LAN “Passthrough” port register them directly against your Main office, No-wiring (well the rj45 terminations) only one asterisk box to buy maintain and manage and a wired netowrk for your users at each location served from the wiring closet.
Choose the right SIP phones and they will allow you to “throttle down” the outside port to 10M anyway, pragmatically, you might well get 100M over your wiring, just suck it and see
