newbie - Telstra number too DID?
 

Hi
we have a small business and we have just put in Asterisk server and its working well with the VOIP. What we want too do in the next phase is have our main and only phone line number transfered to the "Voxalot" service with the 5 lines option so its never busy.
Can this be done and what do you call it? Or do we need to have a new phone number for the business that is set up for DID too our Asterisk server?
Can our fax line be sent straight to a email service too?

our current set up is a Telstra duet line with our fax line directed to a "Fax to email" provider and our PSTN line straight into the back of the asterisk server with a telephony card. I want too have both phone and fax numbers registered with Voxalot then just have naked DSL into the business.

(i tried looking though the forum for something similar and count find it, so if this has been done before can you tell me whats it called)
cheers
Tim

So you mean...you do not want to run your Asterisk server at the office and are looking for a hosted option?

A few things:
-VoXalot is good to combine multiple incoming numbers (for example if you had multiple DIDs from different providers but wanted them to ring in the same place). This is what the up to 5 provider registrations (in the Premium package) refers to.
-VoXalot is also good to integrate multiple outgoing providers in one place and deliver outgoing calls via different providers based on cost.


However.... I have a feeling neither of those is what you want to do.

One more limitation, is that when you get a DID from a VoIP provider (or in your case an actual PSTN number from Telstra) they come with a preset number of channels (usually 2, one for incoming and another for outgoing).

To ensure you do appear busy, you would have to buy more channels for your line from Telstra....or transfer over a get a multi-channel DID from a Voip provider.

Once you have got yourself a Multi-Channel DID, given that you already have Asterisk running... you should be set in terms of doing all sort of routing directly through Asterisk...including setting up 5 different extensions for 5 different office lines.

So the gist:
-You need DID with mutltiple channels from a VSP or Telstra so the line is not busy when you are speaking with a client
-Asterisk should do most things you want to do beyond that...if you want to go web-hosted instead and not run your own Asterisk I would look at PBXes on the low end, OnSip and SwitchVoX on the higher end, and even take a lookat Voip.ms for an interesting combo of VSP and PBX all-in-one
-VoXalot may still be useful to you for integrating different outgoing providers, or routing multiple incoming DIDs from other countries let's say... but given your setup may not do everything
-FAX over IP is tricky business and produces inconsistent results ....either keep your dedicated FAX number,or go for a web-based fax number that sends incoming faxes to email, and allows you to upload outgoing fax as PDF or .doc for sending...

Hope that helps...