[TriLUG] Options for replacing Panasonic PBX with Asterisk

[Rick DeNatale]

On 4/3/06, Aaron Joyner <aaron at joyner.ws> wrote:

> All these costs add up to a negative picture because you're trying too
> hard to keep analog handsets in the picture.  Switch out the analog
> handsets and you can keep some of the features you have now, paging /
> intercom, station buttons (ala one-button dial) for example.  You will
> loose the station indicators though, as asterisk doesn't really support
> that at the moment, to my knowledge.  I hope that's something that gets
> fixed sooner than later.
>
> Consider replacing each extension with a Budgetone phone at ~$60 per
> phone(1), and you're looking at $720 for handsets, then $15 or so for an
> X100P-style card(2), and you're at $735 for an open source replacement
> with all new handsets.  You can mix it up with one of the Asterisk Dev
> Kits (3) which gets you one FXS and one FXO port on a well-supported
> reliable hardware platform.  This will get you a moderately better
> (read: very nice) FXO interface, and a very solid FXS interface for
> using a cordless phone (or even your whole panasonic system), as well as
> easy expandability for adding additional FXO/S interfaces in the future
> if you need them.  Cost that way drops one phone ($60), the modem ($15)
> and adds the $241 kit, for a net change of +$166, bringing the total to
> $901 (plus shipping and any applicable taxes).  Of course, if you decide
> you need fewer extensions, you can easily drop the price some.

Yeah, I've been looking at things like this, and also using some
adapters like the grandstream handytone 386 for a few analog phones
(like the 3 wall phones we have in the bathrooms - we did get a little
carried away when we built this house!)

> That being said, there are interesting ways to come up with good
> handsets for cheap on places like Ebay that are slightly used / may need
> repair / etc which can keep costs down even further.

> Let me know how it works out, or if you're considering interesting
> alternative solutions,

I'm always looking for alternatives.  I still need to talk to
Panasonic about getting the TA-624 repaired, and then my wife and I
are going to talk about our options.  Even if we resurrect the
Panasonic system, I'm more interested than ever in building an
asterisk box to go between it and the public network, something that
the Digium dev kit seems ideal for.  Then I would have a start and we
could gradually take over the house with ip phones.

--
Rick DeNatale

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