asterisk users - Aug 2005 - [OT] Yoda Communications' VG-400 (4 Port FXO and 2 Port FXO/2 Port FXS)

With the lack of info on Yoda Communications in Taiwan and their 
hardware, I thought I'd post my experience.

I got my hands on a few H.323 VG-400's and VG-100TA's.
http://www.yoda.com.tw/model.php?type=VoIP_Solution&pname=VG400

2 of the VG-400's were 2FXO/2FXS models.
A couple were deployed to SE Asia, where we planned to offer our services.

Originally, I ran a GnuGK server as per Yoda's instructions.
It turned out that they were using GnuGK internally.
They run their own server for clients to test and also have an embedded 
version of GnuGK for sale which they call GK Pro.
Pretty soon, we got everything configured and running and had a couple 
of months of live testing.

 From the test runs, we found our clients needed a couple of additional 
services and GnuGK simply did not have the flexibility to provide them. 
We decided that for the final system, we would ask outside help. 
However, with one exception, each time we inquired from a company, we 
were encouraged to shift to SIP.
What to do with the H.323 units? I asked Yoda and they provided us with 
the SIP firmware with which to upgrade the units!
Setting up TFTP and upgrading the firmware was trivial and painless.

Since then, I've installed * and though we've hit a couple of 
configuration issues, I haven't seen a show stopper yet.
I didn't even have to deal with echoes like when we first configured the 
units using H.323.
Everything's chugging along nicely and we've started running live tests 
to and from SE Asia again.

After this phase, I'll delve into the H.323 support in *. We still have 
quite a few VG-100TA's which could not be programmed to use SIP. 
Besides, H.323 is still being used where we deploy.

Through all this, just one thing surprised me. Yoda seemed to have never 
played with * inhouse like they did with GnuGK. They had tested with FWD 
and Bell (no idea what the actual site is), but not *.

I'll post the VG-400 settings here and on voip-info.org as soon as I get 
my notes together.

Overall, I'm happy. It has sturdy construction, standard features, and 
most of all works just fine with *.

-- 
JP Carballo

http://www.netfone2x.com
Bringing the world closer.

It might look like I'm doing nothing, but at the cellular level, 
I'm really quite busy.

>  
>
> Overall, I'm happy. It has sturdy construction, standard features, and 
> most of all works just fine with *.
>
Did you find any noise, hum or gating on the FXO ports on incoming calls?

-- 
Chris Mason
NetConcepts
(264) 497-5670 Fax: (264) 497-8463
Int:  (305) 704-7249 Fax: (815)301-9759 
Cell: 264-235-5670
Yahoo IM: netconcepts_anguilla@yahoo.com

JP Carballo wrote:
> I'll post the VG-400 settings here and on voip-info.org as soon as I 
> get my notes together.
>
> Overall, I'm happy. It has sturdy construction, standard features, and 
> most of all works just fine with *.
>
I haven't used the VG-400, but I have used their 1 port unit. The only 
hardware problem I had with that was because its construction is *not* 
sturdy. They don't strap down some fairly heavy inductors on the PCB. 
During transit, bumping had cause the inductors to break off. After 
soldering them back the machine worked OK.

The unit's T.38 code is buggy. It seems it can work in some setups, but 
in others the machine locks up and needs a hard reset when it hears FAX 
tone.

Regards,
Steve