Phones for Asterisk and single-pair old phone wiring?

[Ben Scott]

On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Kenny Lussier <klussier at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Enhanced telephone set = Something more than a plain old telephone
>> set.
>
> You can use pretty much any kind of phone that you want ...

  I assume by "any kind of phone", you mean "any kind of
SIP-capable-VoIP or analog-POTS phone".  Because I'm pretty sure I
can't use any of the legions of proprietary telephones with Asterisk
(or anything else other than the system they were designed for).  In
other words, I can't plug a Nortel Norstar or Panaonic DBS or Toshiba
DK digital telephone into a Asterisk system, can I?  :)

> ... most of the proprietary phones aren't just 2-wire analog.

  No, but many of them are 2-wire digital (circuit switched), with
proprietary encoding and signaling.  So all our Norstar phones work
just fine on 50 year old premises telephone wiring.

  (Reason I'm asking is that we're expanding into new space that
*will* have LAN jacks everywhere, so VoIP makes sense there.)

> Any phone can be connected to an Asterisk box, but you will need FXO
> cards in the system to plug them into.

  Which is, I assume, means going back to hook flashes and dialing
features codes, and generally, a really poor user experience compared
to a "real" enhanced telephone.

  Our Norstar sets look like this (giant image):

http://www.nortel.com/products/image_library/images/HI_12345.jpg

  You can press buttons on the set for line selection, conference
calling, speed dial, hold, etc.  Response is instantaneous.  The BLF
(Busy Lamp Field) shows status of lines, extensions, and features.
The display reflects what is going on, and offers prompts as needed.
Hook flashes and DTMF feature codes, this isn't.

>> ... there are a non-trivial number of phones without convenient existing
>> LAN jacks nearby.
>
> If what you are describing is each cube/office has one LAN ...

  No, I'm describing phones without anything but a pair of copper
wires running to them.  If I had LAN jacks everywhere, I wouldn't be
asking.  :)

>>  I'm envisioning a semi-proprietary solution that uses Asterisk and
>> VoIP, but also offers equipment suitable for old wiring. Maybe some
>> kind of PCI line card, or Ethernet-connected expansion module, which
>> connects proprietary digital sets to the Asterisk architecture.
>
> What you are talking about is an FXO Channel bank like this ...

  I don't think so.  See above above POTS vs enhanced telephones.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the capabilities of Asterisk-compatible
single-pair analog telephone sets.  If so, got any models you can
recommend?

-- Ben