[kwlug-disc] OT: Roger's phone services

[Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account)]

On Monday, July 19, 2010 12:33:55 pm John Van Ostrand wrote:
> The ATA will get the CID from the SIP header. Why would it wait for rings?

I was talking more of the setup where the Nortel system is being augmented 
with VOIP; thus you'd have FXO ATA ports going to the telco and FXS ATA ports 
going to the Nortel.

> > - "disconnect" between SIP extensions (which appear as external calls
> > to the
> > Nortel system) and Nortel extensions
> > - inability to transfer calls from SIP to nortel or vice-versa

> If asterisk were in front of the whole system and passing calls to the
> nortel PBX just to use the extensions, then why wouldn't * be passed
> through to Asterisk? Does a nortel system eat *s?

Consider this scenario:
- Call comes in, a SIP phone answers it.
- Call must be transfered to Nortel extension 234

How does the SIP phone call extension 234 on the Nortel? The Nortel system 
takes any call coming from Asterisk as an external (trunk) call, so you either 
set up the Nortel and train the SIP phone users that they call in, get the IVR 
and dial the extension or you set up a macro in Asterisk to do something 
similar. It can be made to work, but it's messy.

> I suppose at that point one could just put in analog phones.

Same issue: the Nortel system doesn't see them as "real" extensions.

> > - callerID for SIP extensions not showing up as extensions ot Nortel

> Didn't I see a ATA of sorts for Nortel phones. You plug in many nortel
> phones and they are proxied to SIP phones?

Yes, Citel makes them if I am not mistaken.  Not cheap for sure.

-A.