[Tfug] VoIP/PSTN bridges (?)

[Zack Williams]

This might be useful to help understand terminology for connecting
analog lines to either analog phones or the phone company:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/FXO

You can buy cards that will implement either FXS or FXO interfaces, or
individual small devices that do so.  Costs vary, often greatly
depending on quality and if the device has a hardware echo
cancellation unit.

Nearly all of the non-card appliances talk SIP on the network, and to
follow up on John's comments, you'll likely be using Asterisk or
FreeSwitch (which I prefer) or similar to implement the phone routing
bit.   There is other software that will work as a soft fax (spandsp
and variants).

For handsets, it's usually much simpler to get SIP capable ones that
connect to the network and frequently can be PoE powered.  I'm a fan
of Snom's phones, but other people like Polycom, Aastra, Cisco, etc.

Just as an FYI, this is a VERY deep rabbit hole to go down.

- Zack