Resurrecting my PSTN Line

While it may seem strange, given my interest and usage of Voice over IP telephone lines for the past year, I decided it was probably a good idea to actually hook a real telephone up to my PSTN line I maintain for work. It’s a good thing because people still occasionally call that number, even though I haven’t given it out in about a year and a half.

I was mostly using it as a fax line until Broadvox Direct got T.38 support in their new DTA device. It was also the backup Internet connection in case the Cable modem and cell phone both went out. However, I picked up a 4-line phone from VTech, which allows me to keep dibbs on that line as well as allowing me to test various VoIP things, including Skype along with the Chat Cord.

The one difference between my pre-VoIP days and now is that incoming calls to the PSTN line are, after a delay, routed to my Asterisk server for voicemail. Access to that PSTN line is mediated by a SPA-3000, allowing bi-directional use of this line.