PRI on an Avaya Partner?  Yes You Can!

We recently had the fun of working on a project with a busy mortgage company that was out of space on their partner system. They were also out of contract on their telephone services, so it was a good time to consider some alternatives. When we got to talking about budgets, it was clear that they didn’t want to change the entire system out.

Can we reuse our phones on a new system? Not really.

Can we add more modules to our system to add the extra extensions? No – your system is full!

What can we do about it? Why not use an Asterisk system in front of the Avaya Partner, take in the PRI and feed out analog lines back to the Avaya?

Planning

We met with the customer and reviewed their requirements. We needed to add five phones to a system that was out of space. We needed the existing staff to be able to use their existing partner phones, to be able to transfer calls to both the old phones and the new phones, and for everyone to easily make calls. Our design that meets those goals includes a Xorcom telephony platform, Elatix (Asterisk), and Cisco 509g telephones.

Execution

We began our programming on the Elastix system by setting up the Xorcom box simply. Take incoming calls on the PRI and feed them to a hunt group that included all of the analog station ports. Program the Cisco phones to work on the Elastix and setup the new users. Define all of the outbound routes to give both the Avaya and Cisco users the ability to make outbound calls.

How does it work?

Simply put: Great! For the Avaya users it is seamless. The calls come in and go out just like they did before. Transfers to the Cisco people work very well as well. The only wrinkle was the transfer from a Cisco 509g phone to the Avaya phones; it was a two part process. The user had to initiate a transfer, dial the auto attendant on the Avaya, and then dial the extension. It was a bit painful at first, but everyone got used to it after a short while.

Conclusion

It’s clear that this is a great solution if you are looking to extend the life of your old system while expanding its capabilities. It could also easily be justified when you want to take advantage of lower rates on the PRI line to save on your monthly telephone bill. This solution also works on other analog-line based solutions. The customer ended up with a great savings on the upgrade, and a clear path to the future using VoIP without having to throw away equipment that works.

Configuring the Cisco SPA509g and SPA525g telephones for use with Elastix / Asterisk

Cisco has some great looking phones that work really well in the
SPA509g and SPA525g models.  We recently had a client who liked the
system, but wanted Cisco telephones.  While we had configured the
older 7940 and 7960 telephones, we didn't have a chance to work with
the newer series yet.  The SPA509g and 525G provide all of the
required features - Message waiting light, park location indicators,
call transfer, and easy voicemail access.  The audio quality is great
and people really seem to like the bright indicator lamps.

After a good deal of research and work, we've arrived at a method that
works for us.  All files referenced are included in the zip file that
is attached.

Network Configuration:

The best option is to be able to configure option 66 to point to your
Elastix server.  Option 66 tells devices that are getting their IP
Addresses via DHCP where to look for TFTP files.  In the event that
you do not have Option 66 available to you, you must make a
configuration change to the telephones to get them to work properly.

Elastix Configuration Tasks:

Setup Park locations with the default numbering
Build generic sip extensions with the extension numbers that you plan to use.

Work in the TFTPBOOT Directory

If the phones can find the TFTP directory, they are going to be
looking for two different files.  The first is a phone type
configuration file.  In our case the file is the spa509G.cfg or
spa525G.cfg file.  These files give the phones basic information to
find their configuration files.  In my sample spa509G.cfg file:

<flat-profile>
<Resync_On_Reset>Yes</Resync_

Top 8 Reasons to Buy an Asterisk Phone System

Companies are seeing real benefits from Asterisk / FreePBX / Elastix. Not only companies that have the staff to learn, install, and support the various solutions, but also regular companies who just need a phone solution that does the job. Why choose Asterisk? Read on!

Better Value: The fact is that no other solution offers the same mix of good features and value.

Voicemail to Email: Isn’t it great to be able to get your voicemail in your email inbox? Most of our customers think so. This ability becomes more important as more and more people have smartphones such as the iPhone and the Android.

Web-Based Administration: Manage your phone system and make common changes from any PC on your network with the web browser. It doesn’t get any easier than that!

Built-in Call Reporting: Basic call reporting is including and is running from the day you install the system. Many other systems require yo

u to purchase an add-on package to do the same thing. Why NOT get it for free?

Built-in Faxing: Faxes are sent to email – an awesome feature for a few reasons. No more printing unwanted faxes. No more sensitive faxes where the whole company can see them. No more losing faxes to another person who takes your fax with them.

The Big “5”: What do most people do with their phones? They make calls, take calls, check voicemail, put people on hold, and transfer calls.

Good Phone Options: Choose phones that match your company culture. Here are a few options

Cisco 509G – this popular phone choice includes 12 programmable buttons and bright lights on the buttons make this phone super easy to use. The combination of the buttons with great audio quality, a built in headset jack, and a nice speaker phone makes this phone a winner.

Aastra 9480i – this is the phone that some companies choose because of the integrated menus and the low desk profile. This phone also has many of the same features such as a good speaker phone and an integrated headset jack.

Honesty: The Asterisk community is brutally direct and honest about how features or functions work, or more importantly sometimes, don’t work. Many manufacturers will release features with complete descriptions in marketing materials only to have them not really perform as advertised. “We’ll fix that in our next release.” is a common response.

If you considering a telephone solution from Avaya, Cisco, Shortel, Mitel, Panasonic, or any number of others please consider the Asterisk. Not only will you get better features and more flexibility, but you just may save some money along the way too!

Telephone Systems based on Asterisk

The telephone system technology paradigm has been changing, and the Asterisk-Based systems are proof of progress. The move from proprietary, closed systems to open software and open competition for hardware elements has driven the cost down over the years. There are thousands of systems in use today, using either the 1.4 or the 1.6 system versions.

On the Positive: Features are available for no extra charge that cost thousands on other systems. Voicemail to email, call recording, call reporting, call center technology, and find me-follow me, are examples of some of the advanced features that are just included with the base package. Flexibility is the key to the solution, so there is rarely a business model that cannot be supported with this system. Additionally – many different phones are supported by the system.

On the Negative: Some features, such as voicemail, are missing some features that other systems may have. For instance, other voicemail systems have had delivery of messages to groups of users for years. Since the Asterisk was developed during the age of email, there was less effort put into voicemail blasting as most of those communications take place today via email. The Asterisk is best installed as a PBX type of system. What that means to you is that you have a button on your phone mapped to each line. Since the Asterisk system can easily use analog lines, PRI lines, or VoIP trunks, it is counter-intuitive to focus on the individual lines. Your company may use more than one line type, and the PBX functionality makes it easier to use whatever lines make sense.

In Summary: The Asterisk platform offers a feature rich system, without the baggage of having to support proprietary legacy equipment. You can choose the best of breed in hardware platforms and telephones to build a system that suits your business.