Where to place trixbox? On site, or at a Datacenter?
Submitted by sierradump on Thu, 06/04/2009 - 10:13pm.
I need some help in my initial planning of going VoIP.
I have a small office with 2 phone lines and a 6 Mbps DSL connection ... BUT I also have 1/2 Cabinet at a datacenter w/ 10Mbps burst - 2Mbps sustained transfer rates. I am getting $180+ phone bills here at the office and its getting ridiculous... So I am going to switch and use Vitellity VoIP provider with a trixbox.
BUT WHERE DO I PUT TRIXBOX? Is it better to have the trixbox onsite on my LAN and DSL connection OR would it be better to put the trixbox out at the datacenter?
FOR TESTING PURPOSES I threw trixbox on a VM out at the datacenter and can successfully make softphone to softphone calls (using extensions)... But when I hooked up an extra Cisco ATA 188 I had lying around the office it was taking a few seconds to complete the call and it wouldn't ring in... It may have been because I threw the test setup together without setting up VLANS for VoIP and I have NO traffic shaping in my test lab at the DC...
Anyway looking on advice with supporting arguments for either the trixbox at the DC or ONSITE.
THANKS!
 
So what is the uplink speed
Fri, 06/05/2009 - 5:59am
So what is the uplink speed of your DSL? No matter where you put the Trixbox, you will still have to have all calls traverse your DSL link and the point of contention here is likely going to be your uplink speed. In most DSL setups it is 256Kbps or 384Kbps. If you are doing other internet traffic with one or two phones, you will likely get some very bad voice quality--speaking from experience with one IP phone and DSL link used in daily production. Now is your DSL gateway has QOS built in and you are willing to prioritize your voice traffic over your Internet traffic, you might have a reasonable experience.
 
I have the ATT Business
Fri, 06/05/2009 - 8:40am
I have the ATT Business ELITE DSL at, I think, 768k upload... I have a few decent servers that I wouldn't mind building a BSD gateway out of that I could support VLAN and QOS with...
Is 768k enough to have 2 simultaneous channels running?
ALSO --- What about a fax machine? Can I simply hook up an ATA to a fax machine? I see some VoIP service providers are offering FAX service, but that is an extra $35/mo? I could keep my $6 phone line with the free incoming calls if it is a major issue...
~Chad
 
Put it at the office. It's a
Fri, 06/05/2009 - 10:48am
Put it at the office. It's a good idea to have a pots backup line and you don't want office to office calls going all the way to the data center.
 
Member Since:
2009-06-04