In the past few months, members of the FCRTS have been working on a project to make IP Telephones work on a portable ad-hoc network. We have completed two phases of the project which include configuring Raspberry Pi 2 to function as a PBX using an Asterisk image specifically made for the Raspberry Pi and also programming the Raspberry Pi to be the tftp server to configure the IP Phones.
We decided to use Cisco 7960 IP phones for the project because of the affordability of used equipment and also one of our members is very familiar with the functions of this model. Once the Raspberry Pi was programmed, we entered the ssid and Mac addresses of each one of the phones in the Asterisk control panel. After this was completed, we attached the phones to a virtual private network (VPN) and powered them up and they automatically configured themselves from the data entered on the tftp server.
Our next phase was to create a small network consisting of 2 Ubiquiti nanostations, each connected to a Cisco switch with 2 IP phones assigned to them. One of the stations also had the Raspberry Pi with a tftp server connected to it. Once the network was established, we powered up the IP Phones and they configured themselves and we were able to call back and forth between the two stations. The final phases of the project consist of designing portable power systems for all the equipment that varies in power requirements from 5 – 48 Vdc and field test and deploy the network with phones.
Stay tuned to our website for Part 2 where we will discuss the power solutions for the project and our field trials.