Chris, (and Aaron)

Your comment is a good one to reduce costs and complexity. (1  
asterisk box, multiple IP phones, 2 locations)

All inter-location calls are cheap and easy.

The problem is when the remote location makes or receives a VoIP call  
from a VoIP provider.  All the bandwidth (90kbps up and 90kbps down  
for ulaw) must run through the home location's IP channel both in and  
out... a total of 180kbps up and 180kbps down at the home location  
(SIP reinvites might help here, but that is another mailing list).  A  
couple of phone calls at the remote location could cramp your home  
location's up IP channel.  An asterisk box at the remote location can  
make your voice 'routes' smarter.

Additionally, I have found traffic shaping very important to  
maintaining good quality asterisk voice, and m0n0wall does this well  
(after some twiddling) , this gives an advantage to not running your  
voice through a VPN as there is no way to traffic shape your IPSec  
data (can you prioritize the whole tunnel in m0n0wall using the built- 
in IPSec?).

Lonnie

On Dec 19, 2006, at 7:14 AM, Christopher M. Iarocci wrote:

> Aaron,
>
> Question, do you have hard phone lines at each location?  If not,  
> or if you want to get rid of the lines at one of the locations, you  
> could simply install IP phones in the 2nd location and connect them  
> to the Asterisk box at the 1st location.  This could save them  
> money on phone lines, and equipment since you'll only need 1  
> asterisk box.  Of course phone service at the 2nd location will  
> depend on the uptime of the internet connection.  You would only  
> want to consider this if you have a T1 or better at both ends.  DSL  
> or cable is not reliable enough in my opinion, unless you have a  
> service level agreement with the provider that makes it so.
>
> Chris
>
>
> Aaron wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for all of the replies about this. I'm hoping it will work  
>> out well. I curious about was if an IPSec tunnel will add  
>> complexity or unreliability into the equation than is really  
>> needed Bandwidth should be OK (~500 & ~750Kbps actual upstream  
>> throughput = 3+ calls w/ULAW = no problem), A Net4801 on one end  
>> and a P133 on the other.
>>
>> Since I do have static IP addresses and asterisk at both ends, it  
>> should be fairly easy to do it without IPSec. But, IPSec might  
>> allow for more flexibility as I could easily register phones to  
>> either end (or both) without having NAT issues with the SIP based  
>> phones. But, with asterisk at both ends, I probably don't need it,  
>> and probably don't really need the IPSec tunnel. However it might  
>> allow for a more convenient or flexible setup - especially when  
>> configuring other network services/devices to work seamlessly for  
>> them.
>>
>> I may be back for more help soon...static routes and IPSec are new  
>> for me and suggestions are still welcome.
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Aaron
>>
>>
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