vicidial.org

Hi, I need some help. I am a newbie and trying to get my call center started. I have a Cisco AS5300 Voice Gateway and I want to integrate it with Vicibox. How do I go about doing this? Your help is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Nice equipment. I didn't have time to read all of it, but if it speaks "SIP" you can use it as a "Carrier" in Vicidial.

Find the appropriate method to use it as a TRUNK in asterisk (if it speaks sip, this should be fairly easy), then that method is put into the "Carrier" section (under ADMIN) in Vicidial and it becomes a TRUNK for Vicidial and you can "Call Out Through It". Basically it becomes your VoIP provider because you connect to it, and it connects to your T1 and your T1 connects to your Telco.

The caveat to this: you will be required to sign a multi-year contract with this telco. It will have a "you can't use dialers" clause hidden in it, and they will deny that such a clause exists in many cases until you annoy them with too many calls to non-existent numbers, or too few connected calls, or calls that are too short in duration.

Summary: Read the contract, do not listen to the sales person who says "no, no, no, dialers are fine, we don't care!". Read the contract.

Also watch your monthly fee minimum. Make sure your contract states clearly the amount of money MINIMUM you will be paying every month with ALL fees included. In addition to the "Interesting" methods of calculating this number, ensure that the MINIMUM monthly fee is included as a single number with no further calculation required. Sales people are often ... hesitant ... at this. Many will flat out refuse because "it doesn't work like that". Until your first $2000 invoice (representing your minimum monthly charge) AFTER you've signed the contract. LOL

Your alternate choice, of course, is SIP trunking which never has a contract (and your "provider" is merely a DATA provider so you have internet)

Rant over. Good luck!