I need a temporary jury rig until we can completely cut over to FreePBX.
Alright so here is the situation.
I have credentials to register a phone on Extension 1701 on a Vertical Wave PBX. Because of a licensing issue I cannot make a SIP trunk there. Vertical’s licensing model would require purchase of an additional license in order to do so.
I’d like to set up something on FreePBX so that if I were to dial an extension between 1100 and 1199, the call would be sent to the Vertical Wave PBX somehow.
Additionally, I’d like a way so that if someone picks up a phone on the Vertical PBX and dials 1701, they get a prompt on FreePBX for an extension to dial.
(The reason this problem exists is I am trying to upgrade an existing phone system whose phones are proprietary 2-wire digital phones which are very old and slowly dying off one by one… in a company who does not have money to replace the whole system at once… been replacing them with SIP phones set to the FreePBX but the Wave PBX’s license is not allowing any more SIP phones to be programmed in)
It sounds like you are at the point of no return. It sounds like it’s time to bite the bullet and make FreePBX your primary system and the Wave your alternate.
Without knowing a little more about the Wave, it’s hard to help you, but here’s an idea - Put a PRI card (assuming you are using PRI for the Wave) in the FreePBX server and trunk that to the Wave. That way, you can route all of the calls through FreePBX and only send to ones that need to go to the digital phones to the Wave.
Wave PBX was using a SIP relay service for outside phone calls.
I can change that SIP relay over to the FreePBX easily, I just need a way to temporarily make phone calls between the FreePBX and the Wave using a SIP extension, since that is all i can do without purchasing licenses.
Simply just need to let the remaining digital phones call the FreePBX phones and vice versa.
Or might as well just tell the management that I can’t keep both systems going at the same time without purchasing hardware and licenses… and the best thing to do is just replace everything.
If you can have a conversation with management, I’d start it out like the old TV Show Laugh-In used to do.
They would set up a joke that was so out of bounds that the censors would not allow it, then one less so, and less so until the joke they really wanted seemed tasteful.
Start out pricing in a new Toshiba with all new phones.
Then the licenses for the additional SIP phones, plus the phones on the Wave, plus the annuals.
Then the price for the rest of your phones and FreePBX with Sangoma support for a year.
Then remind them that all of your SIP phones are already good for FreePBX and that used phones can be had for a pittance and that FreePBX doesn’t require paid support, it’s just nice to have.
At some point, they’ll say “that sounds reasonable” and you’ll have your new system.