asterisk users - Feb 2005 - Digium E1/T1 card with mgetty+sendfax

Hi,

For the project I've used the Eicon DIVA card. It has 8 BRI ports,
and for about 25% of the time there are 7 or 8 in use. So we want
to replace it with an E1 card. Only issue is, replace it with what?

The idea we have been playing with was to get a Digium E1 card (we
already have bought lot of Quad E1 cards :-) and then just put it
back to back against Asterisk server. And instead of letting
mgetty+sendfax talk to /dev/ttyI[0-7], we use /dev/zap/[0-30].

Has anybody else ever tried this? Success- and horror stories are
welcome!

Edwin

-- 
Edwin Groothuis      |            Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org
edwin@mavetju.org    |          Weblog: http://weblog.barnet.com.au/edwin/

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Edwin Groothuis wrote:
> For the project I've used the Eicon DIVA card. It has 8 BRI ports,
> and for about 25% of the time there are 7 or 8 in use. So we want
> to replace it with an E1 card. Only issue is, replace it with what?
> 
> The idea we have been playing with was to get a Digium E1 card (we
> already have bought lot of Quad E1 cards :-) and then just put it
> back to back against Asterisk server. And instead of letting
> mgetty+sendfax talk to /dev/ttyI[0-7], we use /dev/zap/[0-30].
sendfax (and mgetty) requires a modem interface. The zaptel interfaces are 
raw tdm interfaces. SpanDSP could be made to provide a smartmodem 
interface but no such code exists yet (as far as I know).

Peter

On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 04:33:05AM -0600,
asterisk-users-request@lists.digium.com wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Edwin Groothuis wrote:
> 
> > For the project I've used the Eicon DIVA card. It has 8 BRI ports,
> > and for about 25% of the time there are 7 or 8 in use. So we want
> > to replace it with an E1 card. Only issue is, replace it with what?
> > 
> > The idea we have been playing with was to get a Digium E1 card (we
> > already have bought lot of Quad E1 cards :-) and then just put it
> > back to back against Asterisk server. And instead of letting
> > mgetty+sendfax talk to /dev/ttyI[0-7], we use /dev/zap/[0-30].
> 
> sendfax (and mgetty) requires a modem interface. The zaptel interfaces are 
> raw tdm interfaces. SpanDSP could be made to provide a smartmodem 
> interface but no such code exists yet (as far as I know).
Aha, that makes sense.

On a different note, isdn4linux provides such an interface. Only
then I need a way have i4l talking with the zaptel driver. Wish I
understood more of this stuff... :-/

Edwin
-- 
Edwin Groothuis      |            Personal website: http://www.mavetju.org
edwin@mavetju.org    |          Weblog: http://weblog.barnet.com.au/edwin/

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Edwin Groothuis wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 28, 2005 at 04:33:05AM -0600,
asterisk-users-request@lists.digium.com wrote:
> > sendfax (and mgetty) requires a modem interface. The zaptel interfaces
are
> > raw tdm interfaces. SpanDSP could be made to provide a smartmodem 
> > interface but no such code exists yet (as far as I know).
> 
> Aha, that makes sense.
> 
> On a different note, isdn4linux provides such an interface. Only
> then I need a way have i4l talking with the zaptel driver. Wish I
> understood more of this stuff... :-/
True, it does provide a smartmodem character device interface. However, it 
does not provide any analog modem or fax conversions. It works for the 
digital isdn connection bearers such as V.110 V.120 etc. Still, that would 
be nice for zaptel devices as well.

Peter