I was just thinking that connecting to handsets seems to be a major shortcoming at the moment. You can purchase an expensive channel bank and a card to drive it or not much else. Is it possible to make an asterisk system that will connect to say 16 handsets using using 16 USB adaptors? Would it work with the current software setup? Would USB be good enough for it? (Maths tells me that 16 * 64k = 1 Mbps which a single USB channel should be able to handle, but is it true?) Ultimately, would it not be possible to make a USB channel bank? Plug it into an Asterisk server? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20030219/a2cfb643/attachment.html>
On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 09:19, Rob Scott wrote:> I was just thinking that connecting to handsets seems to be a major > shortcoming at the moment. > You can purchase an expensive channel bank and a card to drive it or > not much else. > > Is it possible to make an asterisk system that will connect to say 16 > handsets using using 16 USB adaptors? > Would it work with the current software setup? Would USB be good > enough for it? > (Maths tells me that 16 * 64k = 1 Mbps which a single USB channel > should be able to handle, but is it true?) > > Ultimately, would it not be possible to make a USB channel bank? Plug > it into an Asterisk server?>From experience, USB is not a stable interface. At 16 channels you willhave enough users to make it rough to work through instability. The more ideal solution would be to fund Marks development of drop and insert functionality, then make a PC that boots from flash and creates a TDMoE link to a machine and drop and inserts channels to the station cards. Greg said that the estimated price of the 4 port FXS card was going to be $305. I'd love to see them come up with a 8 port version as well. Maybe use the 2 lines per jack trick that Rhetorix does on their FXO cards. You could probably get the total cost of a TDMoE to FXS machine down to less than the cost of a new channel bank. $150 new case,MB,cpu,ram, on board ethernet, and video $305 4 port card $305 4 port card $120 320mb flash card $20 IDE to flash adapter ----------- ~$900 for 8 ports on the end of a ethernet cord. Thats about what I spent for my system at home, $289 on ebay for channel bank, and $500 for T100P card. Granted the ebay find was lucky. Most Channel banks worth having don't go for that low. -- Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>
Wouldn't that be sweet ... a remote box that is easily replacable (since OS and setup is stored on main server - only local setup is to point the machine at the right network server for boot). Software updates could be as simple as a reboot! Anyone know about remote booting via internet? I would think that security would be a concern ... maybe establish a ssh connection first? Just curious ... I'm playing with LTSP here on a couple of terminals - makes my P75 (64M RAM) run like a PIII 650 (my server) Reinhard Max (max at suse.de) wrote*:> >Hi, > >On 19 Feb 2003 at 11:05, Steven Critchfield wrote: > >> You could probably get the total cost of a TDMoE to FXS machine down >> to less than the cost of a new channel bank. >[...] >> $120 320mb flash card >> $20 IDE to flash adapter > >Why not let it boot via network instead of wasting money on a flash >card and adapter? > >This would only need an EPROM or a floppy disk drive to put the 16k or >32k of network boot code on. And if the mobo supports PXE booting (I >think most current mobos with onboard ethernet do), it won't even need >an EPROM or floppy. > >cu > Reinhard > > > >_______________________________________________ >Asterisk-Users mailing list >Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com >http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users >
In what way is USB unreliable? Is USB in general unreliable? (I haven't used it much except for my mouse and the USB floppy.) Or is it workstation/server chipsets? Is it the handset adapter? Is it the zaptel drivers? Potentially it could be a lot cheaper than many of the other solutions offered. If these things costs $50 per port (I would expect a lot less in bulk as they have only one or two small cheap chips on them) then a 10 channel offering would be in the $500-600 dollars range or so. You'd need a case, maybe an internal hub and probably some power. If you need more channels then plug another box of 10 into another USB port. The problem I see with the PCI cards is that they are either cheap low density and you run out of PCI slots quickly, or they are high density and you run out of money quickly. -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Steven Critchfield Sent: 19 February 2003 18:06 To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] USB channel bank? On Wed, 2003-02-19 at 09:19, Rob Scott wrote:> I was just thinking that connecting to handsets seems to be a major > shortcoming at the moment. You can purchase an expensive channel bank > and a card to drive it or not much else. > > Is it possible to make an asterisk system that will connect to say 16 > handsets using using 16 USB adaptors? Would it work with the current > software setup? Would USB be good enough for it? > (Maths tells me that 16 * 64k = 1 Mbps which a single USB channel > should be able to handle, but is it true?) > > Ultimately, would it not be possible to make a USB channel bank? Plug > it into an Asterisk server?>From experience, USB is not a stable interface. At 16 channels you willhave enough users to make it rough to work through instability. The more ideal solution would be to fund Marks development of drop and insert functionality, then make a PC that boots from flash and creates a TDMoE link to a machine and drop and inserts channels to the station cards. Greg said that the estimated price of the 4 port FXS card was going to be $305. I'd love to see them come up with a 8 port version as well. Maybe use the 2 lines per jack trick that Rhetorix does on their FXO cards. You could probably get the total cost of a TDMoE to FXS machine down to less than the cost of a new channel bank. $150 new case,MB,cpu,ram, on board ethernet, and video $305 4 port card $305 4 port card $120 320mb flash card $20 IDE to flash adapter ----------- ~$900 for 8 ports on the end of a ethernet cord. Thats about what I spent for my system at home, $289 on ebay for channel bank, and $500 for T100P card. Granted the ebay find was lucky. Most Channel banks worth having don't go for that low. -- Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com> _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
The second point I wouldn't mind so much if a certain set of hardware + software could be shown to work OK. But I see that the first point could be a sticking one. -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-admin at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Mark Spencer Sent: 20 February 2003 17:43 To: asterisk-users at lists.digium.com Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] USB channel bank?> In what way is USB unreliable?There are two parts of the USB unreliability. One part is intrensic, and one part isn't. The intrinsic part is that the USB clock is not locked to the codec clock, nor vice-versa, meaning you *will* have slip between the codec and the USB interface. The other part is just that the performance seems to be random between different boxes. Some boxes work great, others have clicks. Mark _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list Asterisk-Users at lists.digium.com http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users