[school-discuss] Open Source Linux PBX

["Stewart M. Ives" <ivessm@softecusa.com>]

Recently our school started looking into putting telephones in the 
classrooms for communications with the teachers and emergency contact back 
to the office.  A parent stepped up that was in the telephone business and 
volunteered to design and spec out a PBX for the school and determine the 
cost of installation and maintenance.  Needless to say it was quite 
expensive.

I then started roaming around on the internet and came across Asterisk, The 
Open Source Linux PBX at www.asterisk.org

So far I have not installed this software on our Linux server but I am 
impressed.  Without any additional hardware except IP phones, I can install 
a complete PBX that will use existing wiring and have the school 
communicating amoung rooms and to the office by just loading some software 
and plugging in phones.  I read that if you don't want to use IP phones you 
can use windoz based software for the phone.  We already have the network 
run to all the rooms and the office.  This seems too easy to be true but I 
think it is true.

Has anyone out there tried this yet??

Does anyone have a recommendation on inexpensive IP Telephones???

Thanks for any input.

Stew Ives
Dad & Techie Volunteer
St Theresa School
www.sainttheresaschool.org