Use VoIP for Phone Line Extension on LAN?

[aaknitt]

I apologize if this has been addressed already on this forum. I saw some posts that touched on it but didn't see anything specific.

The church I attend has an office building that is about 100 yards from the church. The office has internet access and traditional phone service. We're going to be putting a computer in the church, and to get it network access we'll use a wireless LAN to cover the 100 yard distance. No problem there.

My question is whether we can "extend" the phone line from the office to the church over the wireless LAN using VoIP. I know we could dump the traditional phone service and go with Vonage, etc. and make this possible, but I'm wondering if we can do it and still keep our current phone service. The VoIP would be over our LAN only...we'd basically use our LAN as a phone line extension.

Is this possible? What hardware would be needed? It would be ideal if I could just put a VoIP router on each end of the LAN and have them talk to each other, but I'm guessing it's not that simple. Maybe some VoIP router hacking would be necessary? Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Andy

[M/Q]

To the best of my knowledge that is not feasible at this time. I doubt that VOIP companies would even be remotely interested in that as they would not be able to claim or make any money of that situation. In my opinion runing a Cat3 line beteen the buildings would have a much better ROI.

[aaknitt]

I saw a blurb on another forum that seemed to indicate that this coud be done by using analog telephone adapters (ATA) and a Linux box running a VoIP program called Asterisk. Seems like overkill, and I have zero experience with Linux...but maybe that's what it would take. Any other suggestions?

Andy

[M/Q]

Sorry, but just exactly what are you asking?

[aaknitt]

Here's what I'd like to do:

Normal phone line<-->ATA<-->LAN<-->ATA<-->normal phone

Basically use the LAN as a replacement for twisted pair telephone wire. There is a paved parking lot between the two buildings and I don't want to trench that to run wires, so I'd like to do it with a wireless link.

Andy

[Kritter56]

Andy,

I am looking to do the same thing. It does seem to be feasible, but I am still investigating what is needed. It appears you will need to following:

Office - PSTN Gateway (PSTN = Public Switched Telephone Network)
The gateway connects to your wall jack (existing telephone) and to your LAN.

Church - IP Phone or IP to Analog converter.
An analog telephone plugs into the converter and into your LAN.

This is where I am still researching. I am not sure how to configure the equipment on each end or if there is another piece required.

Two places you can look at for additional informaiton:
www.linksysone.com
www.sipura.com

Cisco (parent company to Linksys) has purchased Sipura, so expect to see related Linksys equipment in the near future. LinksysOne is not shipping equipment yet, but the two primary pieces of a VoIP network are already listed there, the SVR3000 Service Router (don't think you will need this for what you are trying to do) and the VGA2000 Analog Voice Gateway.

With the Sipura equipment, it looks like you can use the SPA-1000 or SPA1001 at the church end and the SPA-3000 at the office end. The total cost for both these items is under $200, but again, this is the point where I run out of informaiton. The questioin is, can you configure (Provision) these two items to accomplish the task at hand.

Hope this helps.
Jim

[aaknitt]

Jim,

Thanks for the information that helps a lot...I'll research the links you posted. Please let me know if you find out more about setup, etc. Greatly appreciated!

Andy

[ABC]

Here you have exactly that you need
Those people respond you quickly (Model SPA-3000) you will not need montly charge to do that.

www.sipura.com

Complete description is
http://www.provu.co.uk/pdf/sipura/spa_backtoback_2x_spa3000.pdf

Regards

[aaknitt]

Perfect thanks!