Phone System Advice - DIY

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xlurkr

Active Member
I'm thinking about adding a residential KSU system. I have been looking for a long time at the Panasonic KX-TA824 system. Prices are good, and I've been able to get my hands on the docs and programming software. I like the fact that it is hybrid on all ports. I'm most interested in the AutoAttendant and station-to-station features. Also KX-TVA50 voicemail. Maybe doorphone someday, but wiring that would be nontrivial.

Then I saw the announcement by Worthington about HAI integration for the NEC DSX-40 system, which got me to look at it. It also looks nice. It's more expensive, but newer, and has an ethernet port standard.

Does anyone have any thoughts on the relative merits of these two systems, or any others? Keep in mind the DIY perspective.

-Tom
 
xlurkr said:
Ignorance, mostly. I've heard of Asterisk. I'll look into both.

I'm the kind of guy who fooled around with Sage, BeyondTV, and WMC, and ended up with a Tivo. I'm more appliance-minded these days.

-Tom
Click to expand...
I've used Asterisk and it works well. What I found did not work well was the 'soft' codec in my SPA-3000. It caused all sorts of echo on my copper line from the local telco. For in house extenstions (via IP) and VoIP it worked great but if I wanted it to work with the telco line I would have had to purchase a board with hardware echo cancelation (mucho dollars). I still may setup another Asterisk setup but I don't know how much trouble I want to go to wit my POTS line.
 
I glanced at Asterisk and 3CX. It looks like they are both VoIP systems, with various ways of maintaining backwards compatibilty with POTS.

My application is more POTS oriented. I want to keep using my existing phones, and I want to interface with my HAI panel and HAL through their modems.

I envision being able to call in and navigate to the system I want through the AutoAttendant features.

My house, built in the 70's, has no Cat5 wiring, but plenty of phone wire (Cat3,UTP, whatever.) Though IP telephony may be the future, rewiring my house would be very expensive. The KSU systems I mentioned are probably even cheaper than the "free" software solutions when you factor in the cost of the POTS hardware I'd have to buy. You can now get a KX-TA824 for about 200 bucks.

So, I'm not so much interested in the latest and greatest or wave of the future, but getting the most out of what I have by adding to it. If the software systems would be the best way to go, I'm willing to be convinced. Otherwise, can anyone comment on the relative merits of the systems I'm considering?

-Tom
 
Certainly with Asterisk there will be a learning curve and you may also need to learn some general security for linux, but it is a very powerful platform. If you arent into custom programming, checkout some flavors of asterisk that use asterisk core but use plug ins.
 
I do have a lot of experience with the Panasonic units... so I can help with specific questions on that one.

It does not have ethernet, but there's software called Panasonic Programmator that someone other than panasonic made that really helps with programming. I just permanently connect the serial port to a PC then load that software on that PC and remote in when needed. For residential use programming will be even less often.
 
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