[Asterisk-Users] modem question

Benjamin on Asterisk Mailing Lists
Thu, 21 Oct 2004 10:55:58 -0000

On Thu, 21 Oct 2004 19:17:02 +0200, christophe de coninck
<asterisk@arrant-illusion.be> wrote:
> I'm wondering, would it be possible to use a:
>  US Robotics 56K faxmodem V92 - Internal - PCI
>  to make phonecalls to normal telephones and receive them ?

Do you know which chipset it uses?

>  or wich other brands/models do you recommend that are affordable and easy
> to maintain in belgium/europe

It's got nothing to do with the brand of the modem. The chipset is
what matters. The Zaptel wcfxo driver is specifically written for the
Intel/Ambient MD3200 chipset. Nothing else will do.

Of course, you can always write your own driver for a different chipset ;-)

>  because i cant find the intel IA92 card

Fax modems using the MD3200 chip are gradually being phased out of
production. These days, the Connexant chipset is far more common in
fax modems.

> or any of the wildcard's (wich are pretty expensive)

Don't forget that you get both a "works with Asterisk/Zaptel"
warranty
and installation support. This means Digium will replace the card if
it doesn't work with Asterisk and Zaptel. Other vendors will tell you
that the modem is a modem is a modem and as long as it works with the
winmodem drivers as a modem on Windoze, they won't accept that you
have an issue. It also means that if you get stuck, you can call
Digium free of charge (dial extension 500 in the demo of the sample
extensions.conf for a free internet IAX peer-to-peer call to Digium)
and have them help you get it working. They will even log into your
asterisk box and build/install/configure the Zaptel drivers for you.

Before this background, you may find that this is a good deal worth
considering, even though it may look expensive at first sight,
especially if you are doing this for the first time.

rgds
benjk

--
Sunrise Telephone Systems, 9F Shibuya Daikyo Bldg., 1-13-5 Shibuya,
Tokyo, Japan.

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