Need help with SIP to PSTN

I'm wondering if anyone has done what I'm wanting to do. What I want to do is to connect with a remote PC to my home PC over the net then use my home PC to make outbound calls. I think what I want to do is SIP to PSTN. I have a few hardware pci voice modems to use as well as a few winmodems if they can be used. I know I could use asterisk but I don't want to use a dedicated linux box at the moment and I also dont want to deal with the configuration. What I hope to use is some windows applications. Hopefully free apps. Has anyone done this or know where to point me? I have found the 3CX software but I cant find any info if it supports my pci modems.

 

I seen those devices listed and I have the linksys bookmarked in case I want to get it but I was hoping for a windows program that will work with one of my pci modems. I just wanted to see if I could play around with the SIP to PSTN before I start spending money.

I should add that I did see a skype to PSTN solution using a pctel modem but I dont think I have any of those chipsets. I remember those being very crappy modems and stayed away from them.

 

I guess I will just have to get on old pc and install asterisk. Only thing I hate about linux is all the configuring. :typing:

 

I agree linux has gotten a LOT easier the past few years. I remember starting out on Redhat 3 or 4 and whatever version of Mandrake was out at that time. I was once a Mandrake fan because of the ease of installation. Then came Redhat 9.0. RH9 was the first linux distribution that installed with everything working and no errors on my laptop. I loved it! I have been playing with the new versions of Fedora and still think its very easy to install. The thing I really hate about linux is the directory structure. Confusing as hell. I also hate that you have to compile and configure just about every piece of software you download. If these two things could be fixed to where its as easy as windows I think linux could really take off.

I ordered the Linksys SPA-3102 to play around with since it was cheap and also because it will work with both 3CX and Asterisk from what I have read. I'm hoping I can get 3CX to do what I want because I don't have enough rack space right now to add a linux box to my rack.

 

Well after many hours of configuring I'm finally able to make calls to and from soft phones, from SF to PTSN, PSTN to SF all over my internal network. Now I just need to test it from an outside network. Sucks I can only see one wireless access point from my house and its encrypted. Maybe I can give WEP/WPA cracking a try next.

Since all the voip stuff is new to me I had just about everything screwed up. I had my switch hooked into the spa3102 ethernet jack instead of the internet jack since this gateway will be behind a NAT. I did not understand the settings for the extensions for the PSTN and Line 1 at first. And there were some issues with forwarding CID to and from PSTN and software phones. I still cant figure out how to get a proper name to be displayed from the Line 1 phone when calling an extension but I did get the software phone name to be displayed on Line 1 phone. This is not a big deal because I have no plans on using Line 1 for anything except for testing.

I think I have everything setup so I can use a software phone through my dynamic dns domain name. I think I forwarded all the ports I needed. The only issue I had and don't really understand is that you should be able to use the servers FQDN on the spa3102 but when I tried to use it it would fail to register. I did use myservername.mshome.net as the FQDN. Maybe it cant use that for some reason?? Also I cant figure out how to send those star commands from my software phone. I tried 9*82xxxxxxx but that will not work. I tired *829xxxxxxx and that did not work.

Overall I think this is pretty cool and fun to play with. Maybe when I build my home I will just use this PBX software instead of the standard phone system.

 

Well it might be because I'm using microsoft's ICS and its default computername.mshome.net. Nothing fancy. Just an XP computer running ICS. I really dont care about the internal network stuff just as long as it works. I just hope that my dyndns domain will work with my setup so I can use a software phone outside my network.