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I have a traditional home phone line from my local telephone company. I subscribe to a few calling features, such as call display, call waiting, visual call waiting, voice mall, etc. Call features are expensive!
I wonder if it possible to build an Asterisk based PBX server to implement all above features by myself? So that I only need to pay for basic phone line and do not need to pay extra dollars for calling features.
Thank you.
Minghui Yu
Posted 2014-02-12T17:26:36.080
Reputation: 135
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That depends how you're going to provide connectivity to your Asterisk box.
If you plan to use your single analog phone line then you will be limited to its capabilities. For example, you can't do caller ID on the Asterisk box if your telco doesn't provide it.
If you're willing to get a SIP trunk (from a provider such as voip.ms or sipstation.com) you should be able to have all those features and many more. You'd want a reliable internet connection, and be aware of limitations such as E-911 service (or lack thereof.) Most distributions (Asterisk Now, PBX in a Flash, FreePBX distro) are simple CentOS installs from ISO and use the FreePBX web interface for configuration. It's all pretty straightforward.
miken32
Posted 2014-02-12T17:26:36.080
Reputation: 431
Thank you, @miken32. Yes, i will continue to use single analog phone line from our local telephony company. Its basic package comes with one calling feature for free. So, if caller ID (call display?) is a feature that is impossible to set up by myself, I will order caller ID service from the company. In other words, the deal maker is that I have to keep my current analog phone line. But I do want to cut my monthly fee on calling features. Thanks. – Minghui Yu – 2014-02-12T17:48:59.180
Then unfortunately, your options will be quite limited. If you don't have call waiting from your telco, you can't implement it in Asterisk because you can't run two calls over your single line. Same with call forwarding. You could do voicemail (including email copies of your messages), distinctive rings, IVR, time of day behaviour. But your capabilities are very small with only a single analog line providing connectivity. – miken32 – 2014-02-12T18:02:39.957
That's too bad. I have to keep the traditional phone line for the time beings. But thank you very much for your information. In terms of voice mail, does a DIY PBX allow callers to leave a message when my line is busy? This is a feature that an answer machine cannot do, probably. – Minghui Yu – 2014-02-12T18:10:06.543
I have two numbers associated with this line and I also pay for the distinctive rings service (though it is free thanks to a bundle discount). "Two numbers" is fundamentally different with "Two lines", isn't it? Thanks. – Minghui Yu – 2014-02-12T18:25:19.550
If your line is busy, your PBX will not be reachable, so voicemail will not be reachable. I'm not entirely sure how Asterisk works with standard analog lines, but I would expect it could do some distinction between the ring types. As you say, this is not the same as having two lines. – miken32 – 2014-02-12T20:48:49.773