starter kit

I haven't had time to investigate Asterisk enough to know
the product 
line and what is considered a good starter's kit. 
Recommendations would 
be very welcome.

Here's what I'm hoping to do:

I would like to have a Linux box with a card in it to deal
with incoming 
calls on one POTS line.  I might want those calls to be
forwarded to a 
VoIP phone.  This way any incoming calls will get routed to
my VoIP 
phone or, if necessary, go to email.  I'm also interested
in using this 
system as a playground to see how my organization could take
advantage 
of Asterisk.  (We have fewer than 30 users, distributed
among 3-5 
physical locations, depending upon how you look at it.) 

What would I need to get my feet wet?  I assume I will need
a PCI card 
and some kind of a VoIP phone to plug into an Ethernet port.


Thanks.

-- 
Shane Geiger
IT Director
National Council on Economic Education
sgeigerncee.net  |  402-438-8958  |  http://www.ncee.net

Leading the Campaign for Economic and Financial Literacy

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Hey Shane --

We just did an eval and replaced an Avaya at our company
over the past 
week.  We went with the Polycom line.  We evaluated the
Snom, Cisco, and 
Polycom line of phones.  You can get almost everything you
need from:

http://www.voipsupply.com

For Analog cards you might peak at the TDM400P made by
digium.  We are 
all PRI so I personally haven't poked but did the research
on them for 
fax capabilities, etc.  You might poke down that road of
research.

You can tinker with analog, but if you want to get your feet
wet, I 
suggest VMWare.  Until you get above 10 phones (or more) a
vmware 
install will give you 'everything' you need to play and
learn.  For my 
testing I used a free account from voipdiscount.com.  This
allowed us to 
make outbound calls to test functionality.  You won't be
able to get 
inbound calls for free but it gives you all you need to make
a dialplan 
and play; make some outbound calls, etc.

Here is a list of VOIP phones under $100.00 to play with:

http
://www.voipsupply.com/index.php?cPath=95_105

I've read about good success using the Artdio and
Grandstream phones and 
I'm sure the others will work to your liking as well.

I can tell ya that 30 phones is 'nothing' for asterisk and
you will be 
pleasantly surprised with quality of calls and features
available from 
this system.

Hope that helps...
~Benjamin


Shane Geiger wrote:
> I haven't had time to investigate Asterisk enough to
know the product 
> line and what is considered a good starter's kit. 
Recommendations 
> would be very welcome.
>
> Here's what I'm hoping to do:
>
> I would like to have a Linux box with a card in it to
deal with 
> incoming calls on one POTS line.  I might want those
calls to be 
> forwarded to a VoIP phone.  This way any incoming calls
will get 
> routed to my VoIP phone or, if necessary, go to email. 
I'm also 
> interested in using this system as a playground to see
how my 
> organization could take advantage of Asterisk.  (We
have fewer than 30 
> users, distributed among 3-5 physical locations,
depending upon how 
> you look at it.)
> What would I need to get my feet wet?  I assume I will
need a PCI card 
> and some kind of a VoIP phone to plug into an Ethernet
port.
> Thanks.
>
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