Hello, I'm looking for a dirt cheap solution for SOHO use to handle at most a couple of POTS lines, and I notice that X10?P cards go for $15 on eBay as opposed to $90 for an OpenVox card or over $200 for a Sangoma. I have a couple of questions about those cheap FXO cards: 1. Are they all glorified softmodems, ie. none has an on-board CPU or DSP and outsources all processing to the computer's CPU? 2. Are they all bad, no matter what chipset is used (Intel, Motoral, Ambient)? If not, which offer good enough quality to handle a single POTS line? 3. Why are they often bad quality? Because the driver itself is badly written? Because PC's don't have enough speed to handle the tasks using their own CPU (hard to believe, but I don't know)? Thank you.
On 06/05/09 13:43, Vincent wrote:> Hello, > > I'm looking for a dirt cheap solution for SOHO use to handle at most > a couple of POTS lines, and I notice that X10?P cards go for $15 on > eBay as opposed to $90 for an OpenVox card or over $200 for a Sangoma. > > I have a couple of questions about those cheap FXO cards: > > 1. Are they all glorified softmodems, ie. none has an on-board CPU or > DSP and outsources all processing to the computer's CPU? > > 2. Are they all bad, no matter what chipset is used (Intel, Motoral, > Ambient)? If not, which offer good enough quality to handle a single > POTS line? > > 3. Why are they often bad quality? Because the driver itself is badly > written? Because PC's don't have enough speed to handle the tasks > using their own CPU (hard to believe, but I don't know)?Hi Vincent, I bought a cheap "eBay" X100p card over a year ago. When I first tried it was appalling. I couldn't get rid of the echo and noise no matter what. I then came across OSLEC (at the time a new Free Echo Canceller). A bit of hacking to get it to work and hey-presto! No more echo. I have been using the same card ever since with no noticeable issues. I think OSLEC is now the default EC for many distributions so I would have thought you will be fine although, of course, YMMV. For a cheap backup to your VOIP service they do the job. I wouldn't use them for a "proper" system though. HTH Al
I use these cards and they work pretty well. FWIW when Digium sold them they were also just winmodems with a resistor removed to change the PCI device ID. Later on the Zaptel driver included the device ID of the winmodem. I used to be able to get the winmodem itself for under $10, but I think they are discontinued now. Ambient = Intel, FWIW. If you want I'll dig out out and give you the details. If you need a large quantity I would try to find the winmodems that are compatible. On Wed, May 6, 2009 at 08:43, Vincent <vincent.delporte at bigfoot.com> wrote:> Hello, > > ? ? ? ?I'm looking for a dirt cheap solution for SOHO use to handle at most > a couple of POTS lines, and I notice that X10?P cards go for $15 on > eBay as opposed to $90 for an OpenVox card or over $200 for a Sangoma. > > I have a couple of questions about those cheap FXO cards: > > 1. Are they all glorified softmodems, ie. none has an on-board CPU or > DSP and outsources all processing to the computer's CPU? > > 2. Are they all bad, no matter what chipset is used (Intel, Motoral, > Ambient)? If not, which offer good enough quality to handle a single > POTS line? > > 3. Why are they often bad quality? Because the driver itself is badly > written? Because PC's don't have enough speed to handle the tasks > using their own CPU (hard to believe, but I don't know)? > > Thank you. > > > _______________________________________________ > -- Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com -- > > asterisk-users mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > ? http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users >
On Thu, 7 May 2009 13:40:20 +0300, Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com> wrote:>Another thing: their "global-line-standard" should basically (if >properly written) resolve http://bugs.digium.com/view.php?id=11057 . >Though I guess the new code will actually be in DAHDI, as Zaptel is >frozen.Ah yes, I seem to remember Zaptel had to change their name to DAHDI for some reason. Is there a mailing list to ask for more information about Zaptel/DAHDI? http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/