Dumb question - reaching the PSTN

[Charles Marcus <CMarcus (at) Media-Brokers.com>]

Hi everyone,

I am fairly new to the idea of VoIP, although I've been reading about it 
off and on for the last few years. Now it is starting to look mature 
enough to consider implementing it, but there is one thing that I 
haven't been able to get a clear answer on...

With Vonage, you are using the Vonage network - it is their 
responsibility to route your call to the endpoint, which is more than 
likely on the old fashined PSTN.

If I install Asterisk, how do my calls actually get completed? How do 
they get 'bridged' over to the PSTN?

I attended a Seminar today hosted by Dynasis, and one of the issues was 
VoIP. ShoreTel was there, and the said I had to have phone lines, 
whether they were POTS lines, chennels from a T-1, whatever, we still 
had to have phone lines.

Now I'm confused.

If I implement an Asterisk based system (yes, I'd be paying a consultant 
to help), will I still have to maintain phone lines and pay full price 
for Long Distance?

Simple pointers to White Papers on this issue will be sufficient.

Many thanks,

--

Best regards,

Charles
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