Yes, but the point of asterisk is to be able to take a regular PC, add a
couple of special cards to it (one that handles your incoming line(s)
and one that handles your stations and provides voice resources) and
then hook it up to regular analog phones.  With this cheap alternative
to a hardware PBX, the software PBX gives you tons of features including
call transfer, on hold music, auto attendants with your own recordings,
call routing based on DID or caller ID, IVR (interactive voice
response), and voice mail among many others.

Digicom supports and sponsors asterisk so it would be wise to choose
their cards, although dialogic is a standard in IVR technology and their
cards should work as well.  A quick search for digicom on ebay produced
2 auctions while a search for dialogic produced 5 pages of auctions, so
do your research, but if the dialogic cards are compatible they will
likely be gotten cheaper.  Assuming you are going to start with analog
pots lines from the phone company, I would just get a 2 or 4 port pots
card.  You can then add up to 3 more lines allowing you to conference
call and handle multiple calls at once.  For the station card, you need
to decide how many phones you will have that will have a unique
extension and that is the number of ports you need on this card.  Keep
in mind that every phone in the house will need its own dedicated line
to the PBX (PC running asterisk).  IIRC, normal residential wiring will
not work as it is daisy-chained from jack to jack and won't allow the
PBX to have dedicated communication with each phone.  If I understand
correctly that you are building a new home, it would be smart to run
multiple cat5 feeds to each room and terminate them on a patch panel in
a small noc or wiring closet.  You will then have plenty of dedicated
cat5 to run voice or data over.  

Voice over IP is supported by asterisk and might be very useful for you
being in Costa Rica but calling the states a lot.  You can set up
another asterisk system somewhere over here (wherever you call the most
is best) and then assuming broadband is available at both locations, you
can dial an extension from your place and it will call over the internet
to your other PBX and from there you could dial out over the pots
line(s) thus making local calls here from there.

Once you bite the bullet and get the 2 cards, your possibilities are
endless. 

HTH,
Brad

On Thu, 2003-12-18 at 21:22, Jonathan Hutchins wrote:
> On Thursday 18 December 2003 05:05 pm, Greg Kedrovsky wrote:
> 
> > Do Asterisk and PBX require special "PBX" phones? Or will a regular phone
> > function on these systems?
> 
> A "PBX" is just any system where you can dial an internal number.  There are a 
> range of them, from basic four-or-five line office systems all the way up to 
> a full campus phone system with thousands of lines.  Basically it means that 
> you've set up your own phone company, and your regular phone line becomes 
> your link to the other "exchanges" or phone systems.
> 
> There are a lot of different brands of PBX equipment, and they can either be 
> digital, analog, or mixed.  You have to have analog for faxes, so if you want 
> the "switch", the heart of the PBX, to manage a FAX line it has to handle 
> analog.  Lucent (AT&T) did the "Merlin" system in the 80's - distinctively 
> square design, meant for lower-end systems.  These things are pricey - 
> digital phones run in the $200 range, but they have all the function buttons 
> on them.  Systems that can handle analog "terminals" use numeric codes to 
> handle special functions, and I think they're more flexible, but I have no 
> idea what they cost.  I think we're talking a couple thousand at least for a 
> configurable multi-line switch.
> 
> You will want to get something that you can get parts and support for.  That 
> can be a big issue - I know of one place where they had to replace the whole 
> system because nobody could be found who could maintain the discount brand 
> they'd bought.  This might be something that ends up being less expensive to 
> buy locally than to import, just because of that need for a line of support.
> 
> The cordless phone system is obviously something developed for just such a 
> niche as yours - priced within reason, and most of the features you need.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>