gonesouth

Thanks for the answers. Both were crystal clear. My apologies for being slow to come back and read them. Spent some time in hospital, and while fine now, I'm still digging out from under the pile of work which accumulated.

One advantage of the forced mechanical downtime is that I had time to think about what I want to do. I am now thinking of using an Asteryx (well, probably tribox) box as a second PBX to extend my existing Nortel 824KSU at minimum cost. My current plan is to set up one of my Nortel extensions (digital) to be an incoming trunk for asteryx. (It is possible that I can use a trunk which would be analog, but I haven't spent enough time on the manuals to be sure yet.) Then set up a wifi phone to allow me to walk around with the wifi phone and still be connected. All incoming calls would be forwarded to the wifi phone, or just calls to my extension. Future extensions of the service would happen by IP phones.

Would it be possible to use a modem as the connection card for the Nortel line, or do i need to go to the FXO card?

Are there brands of FXO cards that you would recommend for this that are both reliable and low cost?

Is there another way to set this up that makes more sense?

Thanks for your help.

Jim

You said 4 voip lines for $11. Those are local lines with no long distance included? It's not offered here, but it would be nice. The low cost one here is Vonage at about $30/month, but with free LD in north America and low cost rates worldwide. In my case, my telco lines are free, but local calls are metered.......