What features to look for in an ATA?

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juha

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#9105 20-Aug-2006 10:41

As per the subject... it looks like there are lots of different ATAs out there. What are the nice features to have? I'm thinking an ATA that could act as a "mini-PABX" would be the deal. Are there any which let you for instance access voice messages and call info remotely over a browser? Or is that not a typical ATA function?

Juha

sbiddle

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#44366 20-Aug-2006 11:47

Voice messaging is more of a PBX feature - you could install Asterisk and get remote VM via the web or phone.

The Linksys ATA's seem to be regarded as the best option by most people. Having said that however I have a Linksys PAP2 here and have played with a Netcomm and to be honest unless you have a need to actually use an analogue device getting a dedicated IP phone is the way to do. There are too many variables that can affect the quality of an analogue phone such as gain etc that can cause echo.

juha

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#44369 20-Aug-2006 13:15

Yeah, probably should give up on getting the ATA to work and just run Asterisk here, with IP phones connecting to that.

Juha

NickMack

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#44371 20-Aug-2006 13:33

If you need a hand dude, let me know.

Nick

https://nick.mackechnie.co.nz | NZ ISP latency monitoring - https://smokeping.thenet.gen.nz

rcw

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#44600 24-Aug-2006 06:25

juha: Yeah, probably should give up on getting the ATA to work and just run Asterisk here, with IP phones connecting to that.

Don't rule out analog phones. I've found them to be a lot simpler to deal with and much better voice quality for the cost. And Asterisk loves them just fine.

richms

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#44687 25-Aug-2006 15:43

I got an older zyxel ata cheap, few things that it has thst bothers me

No overlapped dialing so I have to wait ages after dialing or hit # on the phone to let it know to put the call thru

Doesnt seem to do names on the caller ID so I cant have asterisk look up the names of callers

I dont think it will do distinctive ringing, there no mention of it anywhere that I can find and both sip accounts also ring exactly the same so I cant tell by that which number calls are coming in on.

Oh, and if you want to use g.729, make sure its not the A varient. the A one has much lower sound quality then the plain g.729 - if you are running asterisk in house however that doesnt matter since that can transcode to g.711 for you.

Richard rich.ms

juha

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#44689 25-Aug-2006 15:47

Cheers. Got a Sipura (or Linksys as they are now, or should that be Cisco?) SPA2100 which was dead easy to get going. Sound quality is excellent too, using a standard Telecom phone, and a Philips landline/Skype cordless job.

Need to figure out how to get into the SIP configuration bit of it now, so that I can add another phone number. :)

Juha