Home » Forums » Community Edition » Open Discussion

Comcast Installation recommendations

oden08
Posts: 6
 Member Since:
2010-08-13
Submitted by oden08 on Fri, 08/13/2010 - 12:43pm.

Hello, I was wondering if anyone could supply some connection suggestions for my Trixbox setup?

The VOIP provider we're using is Comcast who brings internet connection in from a Motorola modem and then to an Arris device which outputs our analog lines (2 numbers and 5 simultaneous calls).

I have yet to purchase an analog card but I was looking at a few options (namely the Digium TDM800P and the Sangoma A400) and would appreciate some feedback as the Digium are so expensive but maybe you get what you pay for.

My main question though is once I get the analog card and hook everything up I wanted to know if anyone has a similar setup and ran into any problems are gotcha's. I have my pbx almost all configured (using a free inbound sip provider for testing) so I am about ready to put some money down and don't want to waste it. BTW, in case the question comes up, the reason I have chosen to stay with Comcast and not go with a SIP provider is the reliability of our current connection and the reason I don't switch over to a standard PRI is cost. Any tips would be really appreciated. Thanks.

‹ automatic sip reload? nat=yes for trunks ›


jades
Posts: 2340
 Member Since:
2006-11-26
Hi, I am a fan of the Rhino
Sat, 08/14/2010 - 10:21am

Hi,
I am a fan of the Rhino FXO cards but haven't had any issues with Sangoma. Make sure you get a card with echo cancellation built in. I believe that's a standard on the Rhinos and it will be the best extra money you ever spent. I never really used the Digium cards so I can't comment on that.
As far as your approach in using analog lines with comcast, sip trunking is much more efficient, when you have the bandwidth for it. If you are in a suburban area you are more apt to having issues with your internet connection and its reliability. If you want to test out sip trunking just for the hell of it, sign up with a provider like flowroute.com. You only pay for what you use. Use flowroute for outbound calls and your comcast lines for inbound calls. If you see no issues with your outbound calls, you might as well get rid of comcast voip and use sip trunking instead.

Good luck

--

Joseph Ades
josephades1_at_gmail_dot_com
(212) 937-4299



boeingpilot
Posts: 85
 Member Since:
2008-01-24
Suggestions
Mon, 08/16/2010 - 8:12pm

As mentioned above, you can treat the Comcast 'lines' as POTS lines. YMMV, but I've been using both Rhino and Sangoma. Each has its issues and virtues.

My real question, why go with Comcast? We've just completed a 95 seat installation, supported by Comcast Business, for internet only. We provisioned 4 Frontier (local Bell) lines for primary inbound and local outbound. Since Frontier charges a bucket to call out of the local area, we are provisioned with an outbound calling service (callwithus.com) for anything out of the local region (intra and interstate, international). With 3 inbound numbers to the hunt group, the last one is set for forward on busy to a SIP trunk provided by VoicePulse. This gives a total of 7 inbound channels (3 POTS, 4 channel of SIP); and 13 outbound (again the same shared 3 POTS, and 10 channels on the SIP trunk from callwith us.)

After one month, my customer is showing a drastic reduction in phone costs. (Again, they were getting beat up on the intra state long distance). They really didn't need more POTS lines, about $30/line/mo, the needed to have just a little extra capacity so that they would never get a no dialtone situation.

In your case, with two numbers and 5 channels, I suspect you're spending over $200 /mo. I would recommend an analysis of how many minutes you're putting on your lines (especially the last one's of your hunt group), and also what it would cost you to push some of that traffic to a metered solution. All you can eat is not always the best value.

Good luck!



carsys
Posts: 49
 Member Since:
2007-03-05
My 2 cents and boeingpilot made a good case. I personally
Sun, 08/29/2010 - 12:58pm

setup many boxes for clients that utilize comcast and comcast business connections and the bandwidth is there. Comcast according to my testing can support 10 to 50 concurrent connections depending your pipe. We are not using their voip lines which are expensive. We are using trunks and providers with unlimitted talk much cheaper than going through voip lines provided by comcast.

So if you would like to save some $ and headaches I ll use sip trunks from reputable providers which is the way to go and not even mention that you will save ton of $.

Good luck!

Christian Romero
FTOCC
http://www.lawise.com

--

Christian Romero
FTOCC
http://www.lawise.com



Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.