Image via WikipediaIntroduction
For small- and medium-sized businesses, going all-VoIP is not an easy decision.
Fortunately, the switch-over, which can result in substantial savings and add bold new capabilities to tired old office phone systems, can be done in baby-steps: Purchase an
Internet Protocol (IP) based phone system, but keep the
PSTN lines, for now.
It is indeed possible to integrate VoIP into an existing office analog system, keeping current phone services intact while routing costly toll calls out over IP. Until recently, though, the hardware needed for such integration was difficult to use and expensive.
There are two ways to route calls between VoIP and the PSTN: subscribe to an
Internet Telephony Service Provider (
ITSP) or keep the PSTN lines and purchase equipment to make the conversion.
Keeping the PSTN lines requires VoIP gateways to convert the PSTN signal to a VoIP signal. For analog lines, these gateways need a
Foreign Exchange Office (FXO) port.
Until recently, most reasonably priced VoIP gateways had only one or two FXO ports - enough ports for home use, but too few for small businesses and remote offices.
The average price for a four FXO port VoIP gateway was $400-$500, until Linksys released the SPA400.
The
Linksys SPA400 is an attractive low-cost four FXO port solution that costs $100 less than its peers.
The official position from Linksys is that the SPA400 will only work with the
Linksys SPA9000, but in this article, we explain how to configure the SPA400 to work with
Asterisk - the
Open Source PBX . We also have a related configuration for the CommuniGate Pro Internet Communication System.
This article covers the SPA400 with firmware version 1.0.0.3 and Asterisk version 1.2.7.1. The configuration for new product versions may differ, so check the
Voxilla Forums for updated information.
[h1]Configuring the SPA400[/h1]
Connect to the SPA400 via the Web interface. The default username is Admin (case sensitive) and no password.
Setup->Basic Setup
- Go to the Basic Setup screen.
- Setup the Fixed IP Address information for the SPA400. Do not use Dynamic IP Addresses – the Asterisk server must find the SPA400 and register with it.
- Setup the SPA400 DNS and NTP information.
- Click Save Settings.
