Ed Pastore wrote:
Thanks for all the great help! I finally feel a little grounded when
thinking about this stuff... at least enough to put a ballpark figure
on my budget, anyway.
But as I think about it a little more, one huge question appears to
me... do I need to massively expand my network?
You MAY want to also consider a gradual transition away from your
Comdial, rather than a full cutover.
I had suggested that I would like to use soft phones on my Macs, and
several people here (and elsewhere) have mentioned that that
technology isn't really ready for primetime... not for serious
business applications anyway.
And some would argue that also applies to Asterisk. Many features that
are taken for granted on business telephone systems do not yet exist or
are difficult to configure in Asterisk, along with a less than optimum
POTS line interface. Faxing should bypass it as well.
But currently, I only have one ethernet jack per office. Routing
another 60 or so ports would add a very substantial expense in both
cabling and backbone expansion (what category ethernet is required,
BTW?).
My ComDial routes over what appears to be 4-wire phone wire RJ-
whatever... 11? 45? I get those confused. Anyway, are those wires
acceptable? What do you folks do in a situation like mine?
Depends.
Telephone system wiring , depending on when it was installed and by
whom, could be 4 wires with no twist, level 1, level 3 or higher wiring.
AFAIK, most of the hard IP phones will work on Level 3, but you will
need to change the 6 position modular jack out to an 8 position one.
( RJ designations are frequently misused, and refer to wiring patterns
defined in Part 68 of the FCC rules ( in the US ))
Some later Comdial systems could also use only one pair, and moves and
changes over the years could have left LOTS of little "gotchas" in the
wiring.
What you really want is a hardphone with a CAt 5 input and a passthrough
so you can continue to use your existing wiring, but I don't know if
they are made ( yet )
And is there any chance in hell I could use my ComDial DigiTech 7700
phones with Asterisk? I assume that's right out, but might as well
ask....
No chance, unless you retain the Comdial cabinet
John Novack
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