3CX & Vonage.. Please Help!!!

[bsloan9858]

Hi,
How in the world do you get 3CX to work with Vonage? I've been trying to get my company's 3CX up for days now. I received their VOIP unit and have tested both RJ11 ports located on the back of it, they both work. The first RJ11 port is xxx-xxx-4511 and it's our voice line. The second RJ11 port is xxx-xxx-4519 and it's our fax line. We've been using one of those phone sets that you buy at walmart that has 4 handsets with them for the past few days and its a pain. We purchased (4) Cisco 7940IP Phones and they all seem to be working with 3CX. I'm able to call internally but have no idea how to setup out going calls. What I need is for someone to explain to me how to connect my 3CX Server to my Vonage VOIP unit so that I can make and receive calls. Please HELP!!!!

 

[lneblett]

You need an analog gateway. In this case, a FXO ATA. Take the fax line directly to the fax. I assume the line is dedicated to it and was never intended to be used as a voice line. Look/Google for Cisco SPA3102 or Grandstream HT503. They both have 1 FXO port and 1 FXS port. You can take a look at the 3CX blog to get more details on how to configure for 3CX. The SPA3102 is officially supported and is generally considered an excellent device. I have not used the HT503, but have used the HT502 which is closley related and have had no problems. If you intend to use the fax line through 3CX, then you need an ATA that has at least 2 FXO ports, but I am not familiar with how Vonage handles fax so am unsure how well it may function. Assuming no issue with how Vonage handles fax, you will need at the fax end (the extension that you assign the fax) a FXS ATA.

Fundamemntally, you plug the Rj11 from Vonage into the ATA FXO port and then connect the ethernet port into your network. You then follow the instructions that came with the ATA to open its built-in webbrowser whereupon you begin the configuration process so that the ATA can be recoginized and registered on the 3CX system - again look at the blogs. THE FXS ATA does a somewhat similar task to the FXO ATA, but is used to connect device like a fax or a common analog telephone handset. Connect the ethernet port and take a cable from the ATA''s FXS port to the fax. Similar method of programming. The FXO will be registered as a Trunk and you will need to set the rules while the FXS should be registered as an extension. There will likley be some added configuration for the fax aspect and it may be very frustrating as fax is not always easy. Just read the blogs and forum to see if you want to go this route. In your case and assuming that you only connect the voice line, keep in mind that you will only have the one voice line available for both incoming and outgoing calls. If it is in use - you will only be able to conduct internal to internal extension calls and an outside caller will get a busy signal. You may want to consider adding more lines to get a more full featured benefit of the system and you might look at doing SIP rather than Vonage.

 

[Ian Joyce]

Within 3CX, you will configure your Vonage trunk as a "Generic VoIP Provider" using the registration credentials provided to you by Vonage.

Vonage is not a certified or tested provider for use with 3CX however.

From there, you will need to either use the 3CX Softphone, an IP phone or VoIP ATA for use with the 3CX to serve as the actual user phone interface.

 

[leejor]

Within 3CX, you will configure your Vonage trunk as a "Generic VoIP Provider" using the registration credentials provided to you by Vonage.

As far as I'm aware, Vonage does not allow the use of any hardware(ATA), other than their own. They did (and may still) provide settings for using a softphone in conjunction with a Vonage supplied ATA. This was an additional cost.

You will most likely have to go with a Gateway, connected to their ATA, as described above.