Asterisk for POTS users

[Ed Robbins]

Mark Komarinski wrote:

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>>In a nutshell I use Asterisk to terminate all of my calls.  Both IP and 
>>PSTN(POTS) terminated calls, as well as originating IP and at times, 
>>PSTN calls.
>>I have several ATA's/IP phones scattered throughout the house and use 
>>Asterisk as a full blown PBX, including DNIS and ANI call routing and 
>>yes it can be viewed as a simple answering machine as well.
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>How do you route calls to/from PSTN?  Some hardware card I imagine?
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I generally don't do PSTN calls but I do have two Digium X100P cards 
that I can use.  I got into the VoiP business about 8 months ago and 
specifically work in a broadband telephony solution, think of a Vonage 
type of service, so all of my calls now are IP based.  I still have a 
PSTN line, but now when someone calls it, my Asterisk box picks up the 
line, announces that we have a new number, tells the caller to call back 
on that number and then hangs up the line.  The only reason I have the 
PSTN line is to test calling scenarios when I'm working on calling 
applications, thus I can test IP -> PSTN and PSTN -> IP.

I have Broadband VoiP service through a company called USA Datanet out 
of Syracuse, NY and the only reason for that is because they use our 
software and I have full access to all of the servers, thus if a problem 
arises I can hop right in and check it out.  To them I'm just another 
device in their system, but in reality that device is my Asterisk box.  
Once they deliver the call to me, I can do whatever I want with it, 
including sending it back out via USA datanet or PSTN to another phone, 
play customized messages depending on the ANI, route it to specific 
voicemail boxes, route it to specific extensions in my house, etc....

All in all, it's geek telephony Nirvana :-)

Ed

>-Mark
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