Re: The Definitive VoIP Quickstart Guide: Incredible PBX for the Raspberry Pi

[James Harris]

Copying to comp.sys.raspberry-pi

"Rich" <ri...@example.invalid> wrote in message
news:lojhj4$gh1$1...@dont-email.me...
> http://nerdvittles.com/?p=9702
>
> "It's been a wild ride with the $35 Raspberry Pi�. Last month,
> sales of the Raspberry Pi topped three million. And, if you didn't
> already know, the Raspberry Pi makes a near perfect platform for your
> very own VoIP PBX. It's less than a ONE HOUR project!"
>
> "If you're new to the party, imagine squeezing a 700 mHz ARM
> processor with 512MB of RAM, 2 USB ports, a 10/100 Ethernet port, an
> HDMI port, composite video, a separate audio jack, an SDHC card slot,
> and a micro USB port onto a motherboard the size of a credit card
> weighing 1.6 ounces. Adding WiFi is as simple as plugging in a USB
> adapter."

I actually have a small PBX at home. I don't use it now. It was bought for a
small amount as a way to study ISDN BRI interfaces when ISDN simulators cost
much more.

Anyway, a software-defined PBX on low-cost hardware is a curious concept.
Folks on c.s.r may be interested.

James

[Graham.]

I have been running RASPBX as my home phone system for over a year.
It's the sole reason I bought the Pi.

It has been very successful, with only one failure when the SD card
failed and refused to reformat.

Of course, even without any IP phones, a Raspberry Pi is cheap enough
just for call recording, and any anti cold calling features you might
want to implement:

https://soundcloud.com/rambo1152/boiler/s-TBeJN



--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

[James Harris]

"Graham." <m...@privicy.net> wrote in message
news:3au0r99ldroiadq7i...@4ax.com...

...

> I have been running RASPBX as my home phone system for over a year.
> It's the sole reason I bought the Pi.
>
> It has been very successful, with only one failure when the SD card
> failed and refused to reformat.

Presumably to cope with SD card failure you could store app and/or data
files externally. I also found this.

http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/documentation/running-raspbx-from-an-external-usb-hdd-or-thumb-drive/

> Of course, even without any IP phones, a Raspberry Pi is cheap enough
> just for call recording, and any anti cold calling features you might
> want to implement:

Does the software work with just certain brands or specific models of IP
phone? I know there are stardard VoIP protocols but IIRC some Cisco phones
are really cumbersome to interact with and each model requires slightly
different handling.

I wondered how to attach RASPBX to the analogue phone line. As it seems to
run Asterisk it looks like this advice applies.

http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/faq/#analog

The Obihai 110 looks reasonable.

http://www.obihai.com/matrix

James

[Jasen Betts]

On 2014-06-30, James Harris <james.h...@gmail.com> wrote:
> "Graham." <m...@privicy.net> wrote in message
> news:3au0r99ldroiadq7i...@4ax.com...
>
> ...
>
>> I have been running RASPBX as my home phone system for over a year.
>> It's the sole reason I bought the Pi.
>>
>> It has been very successful, with only one failure when the SD card
>> failed and refused to reformat.
>
> Presumably to cope with SD card failure you could store app and/or data
> files externally. I also found this.
>
> http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/documentation/running-raspbx-from-an-external-usb-hdd-or-thumb-drive/
>
>> Of course, even without any IP phones, a Raspberry Pi is cheap enough
>> just for call recording, and any anti cold calling features you might
>> want to implement:
>
> Does the software work with just certain brands or specific models of IP
> phone? I know there are stardard VoIP protocols but IIRC some Cisco phones
> are really cumbersome to interact with and each model requires slightly
> different handling.

CISCO SPA-301, -303, -504 are quite good, no complaint except that
their internal clocks resist localisation past 30South.

CISCO SPA8000 8-way FXS work well too.

> I wondered how to attach RASPBX to the analogue phone line. As it seems to
> run Asterisk it looks like this advice applies.

CISCO/Linksys does some little single FXO, FXS, internet router boxes that
can be used with off-site VOIP providers or with on-site asterisk,
I don't recall the model number.

--
umop apisdn

[The Natural Philosopher]

see also Billion and Draytek. U ose a Cisco (obsolote) model with
SIPGATE. Excellent.

Plug analogue phone into router, set up password and go.




--
Ineptocracy

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to
lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the
members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are
rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a
diminishing number of producers.

[Graham.]

Here is my setup
https://flic.kr/p/gZNTpq

From the top,
Linksys PAP-2 provides 2x FXS ports (for regular phones)
Linksys SPA-3000 provides a further FXS plus an FXO (for my landline)
Switch, to glue it all together.
Oh, and a Pi on the side ;-)

Of course I wouldn't need any FXS ports if I had elected to use IP
phones, nor would I need the FXO if I'd used all VoIP trunks, and I
still could have kept the number by porting it to a VoIP provider.



You can also see the emergency SD card ready for action.
Note they are not even and "HC" ones, I get them on Ebay for 2.76 GBP
delivered.




--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

[bcw...@gmail.com]

On Monday, June 30, 2014 8:36:47 AM UTC-4, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
> On 30/06/14 13:01, Jasen Betts wrote:
>
> > On 2014-06-30, James Harris <james.h...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> "Graham." <m...@privicy.net> wrote in message
>
> >> news:3au0r99ldroiadq7i...@4ax.com...
>
> >>
>
> >> ...
>
> >>
>
> >>> I have been running RASPBX as my home phone system for over a year.
>
> >>> It's the sole reason I bought the Pi.
>
> >>>
>
> >>> It has been very successful, with only one failure when the SD card
>
> >>> failed and refused to reformat.
>
> >>
>
> >> Presumably to cope with SD card failure you could store app and/or data
>
> >> files externally. I also found this.
>
> >>
>
> >> http://www.raspberry-asterisk.org/documentation/running-raspbx-from-an-external-usb-hdd-or-thumb-drive/
>
>

> > CISCO/Linksys does some little single FXO, FXS, internet router boxes that
>
> > can be used with off-site VOIP providers or with on-site asterisk,
>
> > I don't recall the model number.
>

>

> Plug analogue phone into router, set up password and go.
>

You can't. The normal analogue phone as a 4 pin plug with two wires used (the others are ground and shield ground) You need a little digital box, which you could likely turn the pi into with a A/D & D/A converters and 48V to power the phone. There are things already out there to do this, the magicjack USB is one, but not likely to work with the pi.

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 30/06/14 15:29, bcw...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>> Plug analogue phone into router, set up password and go.
>>>
> You can't. The normal analogue phone as a 4 pin plug with two wires
> used (the others are ground and shield ground) You need a little
> digital box, which you could likely turn the pi into with a A/D & D/A
> converters and 48V to power the phone. There are things already out
> there to do this, the magicjack USB is one, but not likely to work
> with the pi.

Er you plug the phone into the ROUTER,. No pi required.

[Bob Eager]

SPA-3102 these days.

I have an SPA-301 and SPA-303 for VoIP phones. I also have the 3102 for
the POTS line, and an SPA-2000 and SPA-8000 for the internal extensions
on POTS.

All very nice and fairly consistent. I have a program that generates XML
configs for them for download, saves messing about with the (very
extensive) customisation screens.



--
Using UNIX since v6 (1975)...

Use the BIG mirror service in the UK:
http://www.mirrorservice.org

[David Harmon]

On Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:34:22 +0100 in comp.sys.raspberry-pi, The
Natural Philosopher <t...@invalid.invalid> wrote,

>On 30/06/14 15:29, bcw...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Plug analogue phone into router, set up password and go.
>>>>
>> You can't. The normal analogue phone as a 4 pin plug with two wires
>> used (the others are ground and shield ground) You need a little
>> digital box, which you could likely turn the pi into with a A/D & D/A
>> converters and 48V to power the phone. There are things already out
>> there to do this, the magicjack USB is one, but not likely to work
>> with the pi.
>
>
>Er you plug the phone into the ROUTER,. No pi required.

Dude, you cannot plug an analog phone directly into a router.
The router is digital, the phone is analog.

[Gordon Henderson]

In article <QqudncOQxKVu2C_O...@earthlink.com>,

I have a router that can take 2 analog phones. Several do and act as
SIP clients to an external (on internal) registrar. Draytek 'v' series is
what I have, but there are many others.

Also, many of the ATAs that you can get can act as a router and have 2
Ethernet ports - providing dhcp, dns, etc. as well as giving you the ability
to plug a phone in.

There are many combinations of boxes these days, but despite designing
and selling VoIP system for the past 5-6 years now, I've not tried it on
the Pi. Mostly because I've moved to hosted/virtual PBXs and abandoned
analog entirely. There is no reason a Pi can't run asterisk, so I'm
surprised people are making a fuss over it - it's just another Linux box
afterall and there are plenty others more capable with the same power
footprint (e.g. ALIX boards - althoug they are 4x the price!). For
me, the main issue is the Ethernet interface which is via USB. VoIP
needs 50 packets per second of 160 byte packets each way per call, and my
concern is that for more than a small number of calls it might prove too
much for the half duplex USB interface to manage (and the underlying
Linux driver in the Pi) - even though on paper at 420Mb/sec it's more
than adequate. Maybe I'll run my testing suite on it one day though. (But
for home use, it will be perfectly adequate)

FWIW: My home/office PBX is a somewhat old 533Mhz VIA system with an
internal PCI analog card taking my incoming analog phone line and
providing service to just one analog phone now - used to be more, but
all internal phones are now Gigaset VoIP or SIP desk phones apart from
the big red phone with the dial... I did benchmark that to 50 concurrent
calls but when I was selling that platform, I limited it to 25 concurrent
calls max. When it dies it will be replaced with a Pi and an ATA that
can handle both an incoming and outgoing analog phone.

Gordon

[Rob]

Gordon Henderson <gordon...@drogon.net> wrote:
> There are many combinations of boxes these days, but despite designing
> and selling VoIP system for the past 5-6 years now, I've not tried it on
> the Pi. Mostly because I've moved to hosted/virtual PBXs and abandoned
> analog entirely. There is no reason a Pi can't run asterisk, so I'm
> surprised people are making a fuss over it - it's just another Linux box
> afterall and there are plenty others more capable with the same power
> footprint (e.g. ALIX boards - althoug they are 4x the price!). For
> me, the main issue is the Ethernet interface which is via USB. VoIP
> needs 50 packets per second of 160 byte packets each way per call, and my
> concern is that for more than a small number of calls it might prove too
> much for the half duplex USB interface to manage (and the underlying
> Linux driver in the Pi) - even though on paper at 420Mb/sec it's more
> than adequate. Maybe I'll run my testing suite on it one day though. (But
> for home use, it will be perfectly adequate)

Probably the Pi will not work well for a large installation with 500+
phones. But for a home or a small company (say, 10-20 phones) it works
just fine with Asterisk and one of the web management interfaces.

[Hal Murray]

In article <lotmdh$nql$1...@dont-email.me>,

Gordon Henderson <gordon...@drogon.net> writes:

> For
>me, the main issue is the Ethernet interface which is via USB. VoIP
>needs 50 packets per second of 160 byte packets each way per call, and my
>concern is that for more than a small number of calls it might prove too
>much for the half duplex USB interface to manage (and the underlying
>Linux driver in the Pi) - even though on paper at 420Mb/sec it's more
>than adequate. Maybe I'll run my testing suite on it one day though. (But
>for home use, it will be perfectly adequate)

Try a ping -f. I got 1.8K packets per second. So that's 10 calls.


--
These are my opinions. I hate spam.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Er you can if it has telephone ports which mine does.
Two of em.

[Graham.]

On Mon, 30 Jun 2014 22:23:15 -0700, David Harmon <sou...@netcom.com>
wrote:

Some DSL routers have RJ11 FSX ports and effectively have a built-in
VoIP analogue telephone adapter.

For example:

http://www.fritzbox.eu/en/products/FRITZBox_7490/index.php?tab=2

--

Graham.

%Profound_observation%

[Unknown]

Not every one wants to be forced to keep up which the latest
smart-arse http!S!
like those who thought they could mortgage their house for beer
because the OTHER clevas were doing so.