Phones for Asterisk and single-pair old phone wiring?

Ben Scott dragonhawk at gmail.com
Wed Sep 3 12:22:07 EDT 2008


On Wed, Sep 3, 2008 at 11:54 AM, Gerry Hull <gerry at telosity.com> wrote:
> My question is:  What is your purpose for swiching to Asterisk (IP-based
> telephony)?

Multiple factors:

1. Wiring costs. We've got a new building coming up, and we will save
several thousand dollars by only wiring for data (no dedicated voice
wiring).

2. Cost of expansion.  Norstar is expensive to add capacity to.
Asterisk has a significant up-front cost, but adding sets is cheap
down the road.

3. Longer reach.  Norstar is limited to 1000 feet on copper.  With
fiber extenders, I can bring that out to about 2 miles, but it's
expensive.  VoIP is effectively unlimited.  Even going to our new
building is cheaper with VoIP.  System-integrated off-premises
extensions would be very handy to have for a few cases (field sales
staff).

4. Product lifetime.  The Norstar platform is going to end-of-life
sooner or later.  We're faced with sinking money into expanding a
system that's at the later stages of it's product life.  I'd rather
put that money towards something with a long-term future.  (Granted,
Norstar even if Nortel EOL'ed it today, used equipment would remain on
the market for a decade plus.  But that's not a situation I like being
in.)

5. Features.  Not sufficient justification by themselves, but when you
add in all the above, some of the additional features we would gain
would be of real business benefit.

-- Ben


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