right up front i want to let you know i know very little about phone systems. I would like to get some verification that this will work before i get into the weeds setting it up and waste a bunch of time to find out it wont work.
I am wanting to test out freepbx for my org. We have mitel phones that i would like to use. looking at the documentation it shows them as being supported. long term goal would be to migrate our existing configs from prem mitel 3300 to freepbx and decommission it but i understand it might just be used as reference for what would need to setup freepbx from scratch.
big questions, can the mitel phones connect to freepbx hosted server with out any additional equipment onsite. I purchased a sip truck from Avoxi to do some testing with and will be signing up a basic freepbx hosted server through that provider listed on the freepbx site. We have fortigate firewall, 5330 mitel phones, 1g fiber internet connection.
Yes, I used to have Mitel 5330 that connected perfectly with freepbx with BLF keys, transfer and conference working. Only issue I had to start with was not hearing audio, after installing the G.729 codec and enabling NAT, the phones worked perfectly. You will need to ensure that SIP firmware is installed onto the phones for this to be configured with the FreePBX.
Was this just a quirk (required to properly negotiate but not actually used)? If it really had to use G.729, that’s a significant quality hit, especially with other impairments in the path e.g. remote party on mobile. I wouldn’t want phones that sound that bad.
The issue was that this uses G.729 Codec however this is free and easy to install and may even be including in your asterisk installation. There is no issues with using Mitel Phones, the FreePBX is easy to install and the codec takes less than a minute. You will be up in no time.
@belac : Since this is an experimental setup, I’d recommend sticking with the bare minimum. Upgrade one phone to SIP and make sure the configuration is correct for your test FreePBX system. The G.729 codec shouldn’t make any difference (your phone should support uLaw or aLaw, depending on your locality) and the other issues (early media) have other solutions. Getting the NAT settings right will go a long way to making this more seamless.
You will have all of the “standard” problems (getting NAT set up correctly, making sure the passwords work, set up one of the EPM modules for bulk configuration), but doing this on a “one at a time” basis should help you experiment more successfully.