Hey there. So forgive me as I am a total noob to FreePBX and VOIP. I successfully got FreePBX VOIP up and running at our hospital (volunteering in West Africa), and so far so good, everything works. We have an existing local intercom system of about 100 nodes all hard-wired to about 15 PLC and HLC Panasonic cards in one rack.
I have been reading that an ATA can be used to connect a single phone to a voip network, but my question is, is it possible for me to connect that entire switch array and the entire system to the VOIP network? I have been having a hard time finding info on this as I don’t quite know the terminology or how to search for it. I am looking around and seeing there are Dahdi cards, voip gateways, etc etc, but I dont know where to start really.
Does anyone know of any documentation on what I am trying to do here if this is possible? Thanks in advance.
Google VoIP Gateway - that is what you are trying to do - use the Asterisk as a Gateway for the old system. Depending on how many lines you have on the old system, ATA’s might work (for a few lines) but if you have very many lines, you might want to look at a Channel Bank - I have had really good luck with Adtran 900 Series, and they are fairly inexpensive on EBay. Rhino works OK also - and Digium/Sangoma cards can work also.
So are your endpoints some type of intercom unit, or 100 analog phones? There are products that are designed to work best specifically with both. For example Sangoma has 24 port FXS gateways that can potentially work for you, and are integrated with EndPoint Manager for ease of provisioning. We are also sure to have a distributor in your region to easily acquire the hardware. However some addition specifics on what your endpoints are can help us determine what solution may be the best fit for you.