Asterisk on the horizon

We’ve talked about Asterisk before.  I’ve finally put together a proposal and submitted it.  I’m hoping we’ll get to implement it sometime in the next couple of months.  We have a building across the street that we used to use as a counseling center.  The counseling center was a separate entity and their day-to-day business practices were independent of those at the church.  So we weren’t connected.  We didn’t need to be.  They had their own network with their own Internet connection, and their own phone system.   Well, the counseling center is closed, and we’re hiring new people, and we’re out of office space.  So the former counseling center building is now going to be more office space for the church.  This obviously means we need to be connected.  We need to share our servers and phones.  So it’s up to me to figure out how to get phone and data across the street.  The data part is easy, we go wireless, but the phone part isn’t so easy.  We have an old Samsung Prostar DCS that won’t do wireless.  So my solutions is Asterisk.  We go VOIP, then we can do phones and data over the same wireless connection.  I got some quotes and figured out it would cost about the same to go VOIP with Asterisk as it would to actually run cable over the street, so I’m really pushing the Asterisk solution.  The basic plan is to continue using the Samsung Prostar DCS system, but to put an Asterisk box between the Samsung and the PSTN.  We can use Asterisk to handle call routing and voicemail, and we can still use our old phones, while adding newer VOIP phones where needed.  Over time we can weed out all the old Samsung phones and go 100% VOIP.  I’ve done some research and found this thread post, so I know it’s possible, though I wish I could find the process better documented somewhere.  Luckily, Justin Moore has promised to help, so I think we’ll be OK.