SPA-3000 Review/Guide: Affordable Home PBX

Kerbo writes "Seems every few days there is another news item about Asterisk PBX or Asterisk@Home, the open-source PBX system and associated installer package. You may have even been wondering what equipment you need to get started. The Geek Gazette has posted a review of the Sipura SPA-3000 ATA/Gateway with a complete setup guide on configuring it to work with Asterisk. This makes a very cost-effective way to get started by using your existing phone line as a trunk into the PBX."

I remember my first affordable PBX

It consisted of two tin cans and a string, and it worked mighty fine!

ignorant question

how is a single phone line going to be useful for running a PBX?

Re:ignorant question

Sir,

Hand over your geek card. We do things not because we have to, but because we can. ;)

Re:ignorant question

Well, my setup at home is probably typical of the home Asterisk user.

I have a POTS line and I have a VOIP account, both of which terminate on my Asterisk box.

In addition to my normal house phone I have a GrandStream SIP phone. Either phone can make or answer calls and each phone can call each other. (Handy for calling downstairs from the office to order another beer!)

I get voicemail, call hold, call parking, music on hold.

Although I haven't set it up yet, I can have it answer my fax calls, convert the fax to a PDF and email it to me.

I get the ability to route my calls depending on where I'm calling. For example, calls to cell-phones, 1800 numbers and emergency calls go out my POTS line. All other calls go out on my VOIP account. As most of my family live in the US (I live in Ireland) I make a huge saving on the cost of those calls.

By way of a proof-of-concept for my employer (in the financial services industry) I even wrote a Telephone Banking application in Perl for Asterisk.

Although I make savings on my calls and get added functionality, the main reason I use Asterisk is for control over my telecoms. Apart from that, it's cool!

Re:ignorant question

There are a few ways this could be helpful:

1) Voicemail. Someone leaves a message, the pbx emails it to you.

2) VoIP usability. Once the line makes it into my pbx, regardless of how, it's mine. I go on vacation? Cool, I just pack up my phone and take it with me.

Those are just two off the top of my head, I'm sure I could think of more were I to really focus on it.

Re:ignorant question

"It's a pain to have to walk downstairs to talk to someone."

Agreed my fellow obese American!

Re:ignorant question

Well, that's funny, but the ability to call another extension is Very nice some times. I have a woodshop out back (loud ringer with a visual indicator,) and sometimes I answer a call that's for my wife. Rather than go outside in the snow, and yell throughout the house trying to find her, I just park the call and page her (All Call). If she doesn't answer I transfer the call to her personal voicemail. No more forgeting to give her the message and have her get all mad or anything.

But why?

Given that most geeks get few enough phone calls to render an answering machine pointless, why do they need a PBX system?

Re:But why?

"I suppose it's the same reason I'm setting up network bootable terminals in my house"

To impress chicks, of course.

Tax Deduction

Will the secratary it takes to operate it be a tax deduction?

Asterisk.

Good to see that asterisk is in the news more and more. It is great a great pbx with so many ways to configure.

i wonder....

how long this will last now that Cisco bought Sipura.... cf: http://newsroom.cisco.com/dlls/2005/corp_042605.ht ml?CMP=ILC-001 [cisco.com]

Re:i wonder....

Knee jerk reaction: Cisco's phones work just fine with asterisk.

Price

I couldn't find the price in the article-- may have missed it. Went to the Sipura sight and they don't sell directly to end users. They do have links to sites that do sell to end-users and I found it for $99 [voipsupply.com]

The Cost Savings Here Could be Major

Assuming the software works as well as private PBX systems, (which it doesn't yet seem to, based on the websites linked), it could save major dollars to larger corporations. My own company (Arch Insurance) easily spent thousands on our hardware PBX system, and we're not that big a company. I can imagine what, say, an AIG might spend every year just on this. Definitely worth exploring further.

Re:The Cost Savings Here Could be Major

Um, Asterisk IS a PBX. It already works BETTER than most any other small-business PBX out there for a fraction of the cost. I've been running it over a year and it has NEVER crashed.

Digium (the company behind Asterisk) is obviously targeting the "larger than SOHO" business market - 18 ports and up. They sell a 4-port T1 card that gives you 92+ voice channels (depending on your circuit type.) Sangoma also is getting into the Asterisk / voice market with their own T1 cards.

Telco is it's own little world. You can be a really good networking / server person and be a fish out of water when it comes to deploying a PBX. Some people really don't understand that, then get all frustrated when they try to deploy an asterisk system all by themselves, have problems, then start bad mouthing it. But you don't have to go it alone. There are lots of consultants that can help. You wouldn't buy a $750K Nortel phone system and install it all by yourself would you?

For SoHo people, google for "asterisk at home." It can be fairly easy.

This will be very useefull for small businesses

My wife and I fix computers, and something like this would be very useful (so useful in fact that I think I'm going to build it.) Even with only one phone line, having the ability to create seperate mailboxes, and conditional voicemailboxes (eg. a different message after 6:00, or on saturday, or during lunch). Hooray for Do-it-yourselfers!

You insensitive clod

No one calls me

Asterix@home

Join Asterix@home today, and use your idle computing power to help druidic scientists explore the possibility of creating super soldiers through chemical means!

And, coming soon, Obelix@home, which will attempt to genetically alter recipients to be permanently endowed with these abilities.

Warning, may cause lowered intelligence, anti-authoritarianism and increased risk of obesity.

Missing a crucial piece of hardware

My company just went completely VoIP. We were originally entertaining the Asterisk PBX option but decided against it for the time being.
I can not seem to find a piece of hardware that will generate a dial tone on 16 or 24 different ports. I'm looking for one switch-type looking device, preferably rack mountable, that will take however many phones lines, and connect them via whatever to an Asterisk PBX.

As of right now we put a bunch of the Sipura SPA-1001M [geekgazette.com] in our back room plugged into our router and punched down to the 66 block going to all of the phone sockets in the offices.

Anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.
--
Fairfax Underground: Where Fairfax County, VA comes out to play [fairfaxunderground.com]

Re:Missing a crucial piece of hardware

If I understand what you've described then what you need is a channel bank and a t1 card for the asterisk box. The channel bank will provide dial tone for up to 24 lines, digitize the lines and pass them to asterix via t1, from there you can route them where you want.

A SOHO solution?

I hope this is pitched as a SOHO solution. I also hope it fails. Trying to bolt a phone menu system on to POTS is like trying to bolt a security system on to Windows. Sure you can do it, but you shouldn't - it just makes the user experience dismal and worries consumers. It's bad enough that they charge you to keep you on hold, never mind charge you to put you through to the right dept. Our tech team uses an Asterix system to put you through to the right dept. There are 4 of them in the there and they all answer the phone regardless of what button you press... WTF?

What's next? SOHO phone support outsourcing software? - Enter your script, provide a national rate number and some friendly will instantly start annoying your customers with broken english and massive phone lag too!

Re:A SOHO solution?

I'm kind of sorry that the above could be seen as flamebait. It does contain at least some points that are worth clarifying.

Asterisk is one of several different VoIP open-source / freeware software PBX solutions. One of the things you can do is program a phone menu system into it. It is I admit somewhat of a black art still to actually configure Asterisk but if you can get the hang of it, it is very powerful. If you don't like it, try one of the others. It runs on many platforms, some with hardware limitations and of course the underlying security as a whole. Once a call is in your PBX you can then of course program it to do anything that you can devise.

I personally think the hardware adaptors are expensive for any number/combination of ports (FXO - foreign exchange office and FXS - foreign exchange station - see http://www.voip-info.org/ [voip-info.org] for a wiki), especially here in the UK if you source locally. I do like the Sipura/Vegastream adaptors for their hardware simplicity though. It may be much better to consider IP phones such as GrandStream or SnomPhone if you are starting from scratch. A mixture of the two is of course what most people will do if they have relatively expensive analogue DTMF telephone handsets.

YMMV especially if you have to deal with a non-US type telephone system as you will need some kind of adaptor at least a one point in your network.

Obviously your IT guys just don't want to be bothered all the time. If you get past the menus then you must have a good (read important) reason to require their time. Time is money especially to four guys supporting many more poeple than perhaps they should. Not many have escaped IT cutbacks.

--
This is just being lazy

Better Link

Article on one page, with screenshots, no ads.

http://geekgazette.com/index2.php?option=com_conte nt&task=view&id=28&Itemid=26&pop=1&page=0 [geekgazette.com]

But for my home PBX... the bandwidth?

Here's what concerns me. I'm sure it is a newbie question. If I've got a VOIP provider, what happens when my computer starts cranking some serious bandwidth in or out of my cable modem connection? Do I need to invest in some different home cable router to prioritize the VOIP traffic?

I mean, I can't have someone on the phone making a call, all the sudden to go into low rez choppy digital speech because someone else decided to download the latest Linux distro.

You are correct.

What you'll get when you sign up with the likes of Vonage, Packet5, or the other services is an ATA to connect both your WAN connection and your phone to. With the bare-bones ATA, you plug it directly into your cable or DSL modem, and connect any other devices (routers, etc) downstream of the ATA. This lets the ATA (a) avoid problems with NAT by being outside NAT and (b) keep your call quality up there by enforcing QoS limits on all non-VoIP traffic. The ATAs are also generally smart enough to loosen up the restrictions when the phone's not actually in use.

Vonage (Packet5 may be now as well, I can't recall) also offers an all-in-one solution that's a router and an ATA in one box. You can also pick up the combos yourself (Linksys makes 'em), but they tend to be tied to one specific service -- so do your homework before you sink the cash on a combination ATA and router.

What needs to happen now.

As someone who started a small business and employed a PBX-in-a-box system can attest, this type of innovation is a godsend to small businesses and start-ups. The real key to this technology taking off however, will be service providers incorporating it into their offerings to small businesses. I think that there could be a very lucrative business model selling services to small-biz/start-ups that allow them to have big-biz type amenities (PBXs, etc...) at lower prices (enabled by OpenSource software). I *believe* that the guys who perform small-biz networking on the cheap could easily add this technology to their offerings and it would be rapidly adopted by their customers. "Hey Jim, I just got done installing the extra PC and the WiFi network for you. I was wondering if you've ever thought of installing a professional phone system. You know, there are these OpenSource technologies that will provide close to full PBX functionality with a third of the cost. Interested in hearing more about it?"
Very easy sale.

Cheaper/better FXO/FXS from Grandstream

There is a cheaper/better FXO/FXS from Grandstream, the Handytone 488. This is a new item and can be bought for under $90. It is extremely small (a little smaller than the SPA-3000) and handles all the popular codecs. Its configuration is a little easier to understand than the huge Sipura menus. It works right away without SIP registration (Sipura needs a setting in order to work without SIP registration) which allows you to test it by placing calls to IP numbers directly.

Sipura units seem to have much more provisioning support but Grandstream supports the same provisioning protocols. This can help with large deployments where you want to automatically assign extension numbers from a central server.

Again, this a new product that just went into production and might save you a few bucks over the Sipura in quantity. See http://voipsupply.com/ [voipsupply.com] and http://www.grandstream.com/ [grandstream.com] for some more detail.

Kris

Affordable PBX? Nortel......

I've had a PBX at home for 2 years now.....look around any old office building thats getting renovated - you'll find at least two PBX's getting tossed out.

Nortel Cics or Mics are the most common, they work great, have zero noise/fans. Autoattendant (on most models - or with the Star Talk Flash), voice mail, Fax reroute etc. Great little systems, why go Asterisk?

I love all tech - just cause it's old/experienced don't abandon it.

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one...

I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only one that saw "PBX" and said, "WTF is a PBX?"

Short for private branch exchange, a private telephone network used within an enterprise. Users of the PBX share a certain number of outside lines for making telephone calls external to the PBX.

Most medium-sized and larger companies use a PBX because it's much less expensive than connecting an external telephone line to every telephone in the organization. In addition, it's easier to call someone within a PBX because the number you need to dial is typically just 3 or 4 digits.

A new variation on the PBX theme is the centrex, which is a PBX with all switching occurring at a local telephone office instead of at the company's premises.

From the Webopedia [webopedia.com].

Actual affordable PBX

TalkSwitch Phone System [talkswitch.com]

Now all are VoIP upgradeable. Plus they can expand to suit your growing business' needs. /sales pitch

phone line as a trunk

What is this news for elephants?!
Jeeze.

someone humor a question from a noob...

could I buy this product, configure Asterisk and have it forward calls received on my landline to a SIPphone?

"no, *you* couldn't configure Asterisk" is probably the right answer, but pretend for a second that I could. Is this possible?

Stop trying to see a *big picture*

Sometimes there is a lot more happing in a simple setup.

I have 1 POTS line, 3 IP phones, and a plain old cordless plugged into an FXS port on my asterisk server. Keep in mind this is a collection of parts that have grown from testing. All that would be needed for this is either 2 analog phones with FXS, or 1 analog and 1 IP phone etc etc you get the idea.

I get a regular phone call, my home phones all ring, there's no answer, it goes to voicemail, people can pick who they want to leave voicemail for. I get a copy of the .wav file emailed to me as well. Nothing mind boggling.

2 of the IP phones are at home, 1 is Overseas where I have family. My wife returns back for a visit every year. Most of the year it is the line she uses to keep in touch with family (once she plugs in the second box over there for me, she can use it to dial out to her friends over there as a local call as well)

While she is back visiting, she can try to call me via IP. Failing that, dial 9 and the number and dial out from our landline to my mobile phone, for example (which, coincidentally, is not always great when you're "killing time at the pub") . When she is away, she uses this to keep in touch with others here, and to continue and other local business calls she needs to make.

I can also dial home, hit a key to dial out before voicemail rolls in, and reach my overseas IP phone.

This isn't an overly complicated setup, cost little money to setup, and created an extremely useful way to keep in contact. Don't turn on all the bells and whistles and you don't scare callers (Do they *really* need dial by name?) The situation I use it in is nothing off the wall, and it's simple to use. This doesn't even *start* to cover the practical applications it has WITHOUT being an overbearing system.

For a small consulting business, or mobile worker, there's a huge benefit. Even for a family, there's a major convenience. And according to my call detail records, in under a year I've already paid off anything spent in savings from overseas calling (and more). The rest of the ongoing savings can go to my beer fund. You can call it pointless if you want. My pint glass and I would disagree with you though.

Expensive

I was all excited, until I saw the price for the SPA-3000 was $149.95 [voxilla.com] Maybe I'll wait a bit...

VoIP, QoS and OnDo SIP Server

I test VoIP products for my company, and have found that QoS needs to be managed at a basic level. If you're in a household that has slower DSL, or limited upstream bandwidth (for instance, Comcast Cable Modem in Portland), it would be wise to have your router process and remark (DSCP) all of the traffic between your IP phones and the router as EF.

Granted, your ISP probably doesn't care if your traffic is marked EF, but would prevent PCs on your local network from clobbering your bandwidth during a call.

Also, check out OnDo SIP Server from Brekeke. I play with it in my VoIP lab, and find that it's a find piece of software for quick n' dirty SIP setups. It's free for non-commercial users.

The slightly more adventurous can try Asterisk@Home which has a streamlined setup.

Yes - every few days...

Seems every few days there is another news item about Asterisk PBX or Asterisk@Home...

... and on Slashdot, they're often the same ones!

Another cheap pseudo-PBX

How about this series of devices: http://www.digitone.com/ [digitone.com]

I've been using one now for several years with great results! It lets me do the following:

• Make long distance calls from work by bridging them through my PBX using my residential plan long distance and 3-way calling.
• Have 4 extensions (mine, girlfriend's, business, general) with answering machines/phones for each.
• Keep telemarketers from ever ringing a device in my house, ever.

And all for around 100 bucks!

fxs from voice modem?

Would it be possible to create a fxs easily out of a voice modem? Voice modem is basicaly a fxo. So I figured that if it was possible to somehow 'add dial tone', it might be possible to build a fxs expansion card from a dirt cheap voice modem.

Anyone got an idea if it could be done?

* is still way over my head...

And I thought I was pretty knowledgable about technology.

Do most people need a PBX at home? Hell, I'd be happy if I could get something that did Fax to PDF and voicemail while sitting between the incoming analog telephone line and my (inside the house) telephone network. Do I need a computer and all this crap for that?

Can someone help?

I have a POTS line and a whole bunch of phones around the house. I need to have my outside line route to the PABX and then the PABX would route to each individual extension. How would this be accomplished?

Costs Might Not Scale Like You Think

I have been checking out PBX's and phone systems for a while and I manage a couple of them right now.

The real cost of the phone systems are in the desksets which vary in features and cost but in a medium small office the PBX is a small percentage of the cost.

Consider a 30 station setup with 8 lines. The 30 phones would be somewhere between 6000 - 12000 depending on model. (you probably would not do elcheapo $75 ebay phones).

The {insert brand name here} PBX would be more but the asterisk would be probably $2000 (including cards). And then, no matter what system you choose, comes the programing, which should be about the same no matter what.

The thing that asterisk provides is the ability for everyone to use it. It is also exteremly accessable.

community voip service?

I would be interested in donating a land line w/ a astrisk box attached so that others could route voip call in my area if others did the same.

Is there a network of people doing this?

Convenient. My mom just called, asked me...

Talk about convenient. This topic just came up yesterday. My mom called, asked me what type of PBX she should purchase for home use. And to think that someone had this very thought in mind today! Wow. Thanks everyone.

Re:It will never stop.

Wait a minute - *10* magic beans? The most I ever got was 5! I'm gonna write my Congressman and complain about that cheap-ass PE teacher!

Re:P.O.S

If by "almost the same money" you mean "twice as much". A SPA3000 runs about $100, a TDM400 costs about $200.

Also, I don't have expansion slots, and my always-on home box is running Windows w/ coLinux (so the Linux side doesn't have direct access to the PCI bus -- but the fiancee gets to play The Sims).