Analog Phone Lines
Analog phone line cards can be used to connect standard POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) lines to your PBX. While analog phone lines are considered to be more reliable than digital lines, there are inherent limitations that must be considered. For example, you cannot override the Caller ID associated with an analog line, and you may encounter a slight delay when dialing out. Analog lines are commonly used for fail-over and faxing when VoIP trunks serve as the primary means of connecting to the PSTN with an Evolution PBX.
To add an analog phone line:
- Select the type of analog card from the "Add Phone Lines" drop down list.
- Adjust the "Lines Active" value to specify the number of active lines on the card.
- To the right of the window, under "Inbound Calls" you can set the destination for each phone line.
- Click "Save".
Reverse Order: When checked, this reverses the order of the lines as configured for the card, I.E. on a four port analog card, port one would be assigned to "Line 4"
Calibrate Echo: By checking this option on the next reboot Evolution will evaluate each line and optimize the echo cancellation settings. This can take approximately 3 minutes per line so make sure the reboot occurs in a scheduled downtime window. Once calibrated the settings will be retained between reboots.
Card Settings
| Setting | Description |
|---|---|
| PCI Slot | Select the PCI slot(1-4) where you physically installed this card. If this is the only card of this model in your machine, this value will not be utilized and can be set at any of the available values. If you have multiple cards of the same type installed, this corresponds to the PCI slot number on your motherboard where this card resides. |
| Lines Active | Represents the number of FXO modules installed on the card. One FXO module is used per line. For example, if you have an 8 port analog card with 4 FXO modules, you would select "4". |
| Default Trunk Group | Defines the default trunk group to be used by each line on the card. Each line can be assigned a unique trunk group within the "Advanced Options". |
| Echo Cancel | If the analog card has a hardware echo cancellation module, select "Hardware". If not, you can use one of three software echo cancellation algorithms (MG2, KB1, SEC2) or you can disable echo cancellation by selecting "None". |
| Echo Train | The number of milliseconds that will be taken from the beginning of each call to learn the echo. To eliminate echo play with this setting until the echo disappears. Evolution will need to be restarted with each change for proper assessment of the adjustment. |
| Volume | This will adjust the volume of the analog lines. Adjusting the "TX" up will increase the volume heard by the caller. Adjusting the "RX" up will increase the volume heard by the extension. |
| Default Prov. | Check this box to define this card as the "Default Provider" for outbound dialing. |
Advanced Settings
When you click the "Advanced" check-box, some additional options appear. For each line you can select a trunk group, or use the default trunk group. To the right of each trunk group is an icon to access the "Outbound Number Translations" for the selected trunk group. This icon is only visible after the card has been added to the system. Click this icon and a window will pop up presenting the available dial strings. In addition, there is an option to select the "Tone Zone". Each country adheres to a slightly different standard for DTMF and signalling tones.
Outbound Number Translation
The outbound number translations provide a method to change the number as dialed to match requirements met by your provider. You can prepend or remove digits from a dialed number before it is handed to the provider. For instance your provider may require a 1 even if you are doing a 10 digit number. Numbers will show up after the trunk has been referenced as a valid route in the outbound dialmap. Below are a few examples of how to modify the dialed number:
- Striping the first digit from the beginning of the dialed number:
${DIALED:1} - Adding a 1 to the number dialed:
1${DIALED} - Adding the area code 949 to the dialed number:
949${DIALED}
Additional info on Outbound Number Translations can be found here