asterisk users - Nov 2003 - 3x AVM Fritz!Card PCI for a EuroISDN PBX.

Hi there!

I'm currently considering various PBX solutions for our office telephone
network, and would very much like to use Asterisk. Currently, my
research is incomplete. I have been recommended to use the above cards,
but it is unclear from my Googling whether my configuration will work:

   - 3x Fritz!Card PCI's in one host.
   - 3x 6 b-channels.
   - ~20 Budgetone (and some others) handsets.


Can anyone answer these questions:

   - Will the 3 ISDN cards function correctly in one host?

   - Will running all 3 cards flat out require particularly beefy
     hardware?

   - Will the Grandstream phones provide a good equivilant to
     professional dedicated PBX phones? (assuming a good network)  I
     have read lots about echo problems and so on, is this an issue?


Any help in the matter would be very much appreciated. Thanks in
advance!


David.

On Fri, Nov 28, 2003 at 05:02:57PM +0000, David M. Wilson wrote:
>    - 3x 6 b-channels.
     - 6 b-channels.


Sorry folks!


David.

David M. Wilson wrote:
> Hi there!
> 
> I'm currently considering various PBX solutions for our office
telephone
> network, and would very much like to use Asterisk. Currently, my
> research is incomplete. I have been recommended to use the above cards,
> but it is unclear from my Googling whether my configuration will work:
> 
>    - 3x Fritz!Card PCI's in one host.
As far as I know, AVM only allows a single Fritz!Card PCI in a PC. I 
/think/ there is a patch out there to allow more than one. Search the 
archives to find out more.

I am sure, you will get better results by putting in an active card. 
Either AVM or EICON. I have /heard/ the EICON cards are preferable 
because of the on board echo cancellation
-- 
Best regards

Peer Oliver Schmidt
the internet company

David M. Wilson wrote:
>Hi there!
>
>I'm currently considering various PBX solutions for our office telephone
>network, and would very much like to use Asterisk. Currently, my
>research is incomplete. I have been recommended to use the above cards,
>but it is unclear from my Googling whether my configuration will work:
>
>   - 3x Fritz!Card PCI's in one host.
>   - 3x 6 b-channels.
>   - ~20 Budgetone (and some others) handsets.
>
>
>Can anyone answer these questions:
>
>   - Will the 3 ISDN cards function correctly in one host?
>
>   - Will running all 3 cards flat out require particularly beefy
>     hardware?
>
>   - Will the Grandstream phones provide a good equivilant to
>     professional dedicated PBX phones? (assuming a good network)  I
>     have read lots about echo problems and so on, is this an issue?
>
>
>Any help in the matter would be very much appreciated. Thanks in
>advance!
>
>
>  
>
The driver from AVM only allows one Firtz card in a PC, there is a hack 
to run two but I don't know about 3.. Save yourself a lot of time and 
frustration and get a 4 BRI card from Eicon or AVM ( I believe the Eicon 
is better becasue it has echo cancellation but a little more expensive 
than the 4BRI AVM card) especially if its for an office install of that 
many users..

The GS phones are fine and work well, they have a few quirks but these 
should be fixed on the next firmware upgrade..

If you are running GS phones then the only codec availible to you is the 
G.711, using this codec you will not need all that powerful a server.. A 
1Ghz and above processor with 256+MB of RAM should be fine..

Later..

Hi David,
> I'm currently considering various PBX solutions for our office
telephone
> network, and would very much like to use Asterisk. Currently, my
> research is incomplete. I have been recommended to use the above cards,
> but it is unclear from my Googling whether my configuration will work:
> 
>    - 3x Fritz!Card PCI's in one host.
>    - 3x 6 b-channels.
>    - ~20 Budgetone (and some others) handsets.
> 
> Can anyone answer these questions:
> 
>    - Will the 3 ISDN cards function correctly in one host?
We have done this and it works, using a variant of the hack posted on the 
website. Points to watch out for:

- It's not reliable. We've had Asterisk spontaneously refuse to dial out
or accept connections on CAPI until the cards are reset. We don't 
recommend doing this in production.

- You need to be careful with the patch because there are two types of 
cards, and the patch isn't clever about how it detects them, so either 
make sure that all your cards are absolutely identical in /proc/pci, or 
fix the patch.
>    - Will running all 3 cards flat out require particularly beefy
>      hardware?
Doesn't seem to.
>    - Will the Grandstream phones provide a good equivilant to
>      professional dedicated PBX phones? (assuming a good network)  I
>      have read lots about echo problems and so on, is this an issue?
They are cheap and nasty feeling, and not particularly reliable, so I 
would say no. Cisco 7960 is much better, although more of a pain to get 
working out of the box, since you need DHCP, TFTP and configuration tools.

Cheers, Chris.
-- 
_  __ __     _
 / __/ / ,__(_)_  | Chris Wilson -- UNIX Firewall Lead Developer |
/ (_  ,\/ _/ /_ \ | NetServers.co.uk http://www.netservers.co.uk |
\__/_/_/_//_/___/ | 21 Signet Court, Cambridge, UK. 01223 576516 |

Hi!
> >    - Will the 3 ISDN cards function correctly in one host?
> 
> We have done this and it works, using a variant of the hack posted on the 
> website. Points to watch out for:
> 
> - It's not reliable. We've had Asterisk spontaneously refuse to
dial out
> or accept connections on CAPI until the cards are reset. We don't 
> recommend doing this in production.
That's valuable information - can you also comment on the operation of 
just 2 cards? Would that be (more) stable or is that essential the same 
as running 3?

Cheers, Philipp

David M. Wilson schrieb:
> Hi there!
> 
> I'm currently considering various PBX solutions for our office
telephone
> network, and would very much like to use Asterisk. Currently, my
> research is incomplete. I have been recommended to use the above cards,
> but it is unclear from my Googling whether my configuration will work:
> 
>    - 3x Fritz!Card PCI's in one host.
>    - 3x 6 b-channels.
>    - ~20 Budgetone (and some others) handsets.
> 
> 
> Can anyone answer these questions:
> 
>    - Will the 3 ISDN cards function correctly in one host?
> 
>    - Will running all 3 cards flat out require particularly beefy
>      hardware?
> 
>    - Will the Grandstream phones provide a good equivilant to
>      professional dedicated PBX phones? (assuming a good network)  I
>      have read lots about echo problems and so on, is this an issue?
> 
> 
> Any help in the matter would be very much appreciated. Thanks in
> advance!
> 
> 
You can try http://www.quiss.org/caiviar/Two-Fritzcards-HOWTO

Thomas