Hi I am setting up a phone system for a small office. The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office. We have made no hardware purchase yet. Being an asterisk newbie, before I suscribed to this list I just assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect all the phones to a private ethernet network. However, I see many people inquiring about FXS cards. Is there any reason why I would need to consider using analog phones and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest way is with voip phones and voice quality should be good since the phones are on a private network that only has voice traffic. Thanks -- Jim Freeze
You can save a little money with analog phones however if that saving is not an issue business class VoIP phones from providers like Polycom and Cisco have more features and much of the time better call quality. -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 1:07 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Hi I am setting up a phone system for a small office. The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office. We have made no hardware purchase yet. Being an asterisk newbie, before I suscribed to this list I just assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect all the phones to a private ethernet network. However, I see many people inquiring about FXS cards. Is there any reason why I would need to consider using analog phones and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest way is with voip phones and voice quality should be good since the phones are on a private network that only has voice traffic. Thanks -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
On the upside: -FXS allows you to use existing cat 3 wiring -FXS allows you to randomly pick an analog phone and it will work -FXS takes care of any QoS, routing, codec etc issue that you would otherwise have with Ethernet -FXS does not require infrastructure like switches, routers etc -FXS allows you to use low baud rate modems (security systems) and fax machines although IAXModem is coming along nicely yay faxguy! -FXS + 5.8Ghz cordless is the simplest (and best) way to do a wireless phone with Asterisk On the downside: -FXS does not scale (practically) -FXS has it's own issues with call quality -FXS modules and channel banks are a moving target with driver-or-chassis-or-card of the month -FXS works with faxes and low baud rate modems, but just barely -FXS cannot allow you to project phone service into arbitrary locations on the Internet. You require a physical connection to Asterisk -A well tuned FXS install is largely a black art. Expect to fool around a lot with gains etc. hth -----Original Message----- From: Jim Freeze [mailto:asterisk@freeze.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:07 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Hi I am setting up a phone system for a small office. The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office. We have made no hardware purchase yet. Being an asterisk newbie, before I suscribed to this list I just assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect all the phones to a private ethernet network. However, I see many people inquiring about FXS cards. Is there any reason why I would need to consider using analog phones and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest way is with voip phones and voice quality should be good since the phones are on a private network that only has voice traffic. Thanks -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Hi Colin On 1/11/06, Colin Anderson <ColinA@landmarkmasterbuilder.com> wrote:> On the upside:[snipped]> On the downside:[snipped]> hthYes. Thanks. That helped a lot. You certainly make FXS sound scary (black art). For a new office setup, it seems like the better choice is voip all the way. -- Jim Freeze
well it's not *really* scary, it's just not a PnP solution 95% of the time. You have to know a little telecom to make it sit up and beg. My TDM400P on my home Asterisk service was the hardest part of the install. The SIP stuff was cake, but the TDM400 required some fooling around before I was happy with the performance. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Freeze [mailto:asterisk@freeze.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:36 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Hi Colin On 1/11/06, Colin Anderson <ColinA@landmarkmasterbuilder.com> wrote:> On the upside:[snipped]> On the downside:[snipped]> hthYes. Thanks. That helped a lot. You certainly make FXS sound scary (black art). For a new office setup, it seems like the better choice is voip all the way. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Think of it this way. VoIP phones allow you to place a phone anywhere that a network connection exists. Your Asterisk box will be on the network and will be easily accessible. FXO and analog phones require point to point termination. Phone to FXO. Period. What a pain! VoIP phones are relatively cheap and look/work really nice. Just buy a 4 port FXO card from Digium and connect your 4 analog lines to the * box. Or you can even contact me off list if you want to buy my old one. I just moved to PRI. Get a analog to SIP gateway (Sipura SPA-1001 for example) and connect your fax into the system. Just the ease of use alone is worth using VoIP phones. A single computer can handle a HUGE amount of VoIP phones. The phone connects to your network and "talks" to the asterisk server over the network. I have 20 phones on my network with no issue at all. Others have many many more. Contact me off list if you want some newbie help. I have done this a couple of times and am more than willing to help out a first timer. Cheers, Wiley -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:28 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > You can save a little money with analog phones however if that saving > is not an issue business class VoIP phones from providers like Polycom> and Cisco have more features and much of the time better call quality.Thanks William for the response. That is good news about the phone quality.>From what I have read, I think the overall cost would still be cheaperwith a voip solution, even if the phones are more. A 4 line FXS card is about $3-400 (I think). If I understand this correctly, even if I have only 4 lines incoming, I need an FXS homerun to each phone. So for 5 phones, I would need 2 cards. And, the O'Reilly book says that I should not put 2 cards in the same box, so I would need another computer. I was hoping a single computer could handle up to 10 voip phones. Am I deluding myself? Jim> Hi > > I am setting up a phone system for a small office. > The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. > There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office. > We have made no hardware purchase yet. > > Being an asterisk newbie, before I suscribed to this list I just > assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect all the phones to a > private ethernet network. > > However, I see many people inquiring about FXS cards. > > Is there any reason why I would need to consider using analog phones > and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest way is with voip phones and > voice quality should be good since the phones are on a private network> that only has voice traffic.-- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Or FXS... Whatever. The point is port connect directly. No one spam me on this one... 8) Cheers, Wiley -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Wiley Siler Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:55 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Think of it this way. VoIP phones allow you to place a phone anywhere that a network connection exists. Your Asterisk box will be on the network and will be easily accessible. FXO and analog phones require point to point termination. Phone to FXO. Period. What a pain! VoIP phones are relatively cheap and look/work really nice. Just buy a 4 port FXO card from Digium and connect your 4 analog lines to the * box. Or you can even contact me off list if you want to buy my old one. I just moved to PRI. Get a analog to SIP gateway (Sipura SPA-1001 for example) and connect your fax into the system. Just the ease of use alone is worth using VoIP phones. A single computer can handle a HUGE amount of VoIP phones. The phone connects to your network and "talks" to the asterisk server over the network. I have 20 phones on my network with no issue at all. Others have many many more. Contact me off list if you want some newbie help. I have done this a couple of times and am more than willing to help out a first timer. Cheers, Wiley -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:28 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > You can save a little money with analog phones however if that saving > is not an issue business class VoIP phones from providers like Polycom> and Cisco have more features and much of the time better call quality.Thanks William for the response. That is good news about the phone quality.>From what I have read, I think the overall cost would still be cheaperwith a voip solution, even if the phones are more. A 4 line FXS card is about $3-400 (I think). If I understand this correctly, even if I have only 4 lines incoming, I need an FXS homerun to each phone. So for 5 phones, I would need 2 cards. And, the O'Reilly book says that I should not put 2 cards in the same box, so I would need another computer. I was hoping a single computer could handle up to 10 voip phones. Am I deluding myself? Jim> Hi > > I am setting up a phone system for a small office. > The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. > There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office. > We have made no hardware purchase yet. > > Being an asterisk newbie, before I suscribed to this list I just > assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect all the phones to a > private ethernet network. > > However, I see many people inquiring about FXS cards. > > Is there any reason why I would need to consider using analog phones > and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest way is with voip phones and > voice quality should be good since the phones are on a private network> that only has voice traffic.-- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
In one of my configurations I have an office with a digium dual T1 card... 23 Channel PRI coming in on port 1... Coastcom mux on port2 breaking out FXS channels.. and voip phones... Initially the plan was to use voip phones and use FXS channels for fax machines.. After putting some phones on the FXS channels and some on the voip.. I would choose FXS as my primary solution.. The reliability and call quality was better in our solution.. I will be doing another installation with only FXS channels and ADSI phones... -----Original Message----- From: Colin Anderson [mailto:ColinA@landmarkmasterbuilder.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:54 PM To: 'Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion' Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP well it's not *really* scary, it's just not a PnP solution 95% of the time. You have to know a little telecom to make it sit up and beg. My TDM400P on my home Asterisk service was the hardest part of the install. The SIP stuff was cake, but the TDM400 required some fooling around before I was happy with the performance. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Freeze [mailto:asterisk@freeze.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:36 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Hi Colin On 1/11/06, Colin Anderson <ColinA@landmarkmasterbuilder.com> wrote:> On the upside:[snipped]> On the downside:[snipped]> hthYes. Thanks. That helped a lot. You certainly make FXS sound scary (black art). For a new office setup, it seems like the better choice is voip all the way. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
The nice thing about the Digium TDMXXX series of analog cards is that it allows you to mix and match FXO or FXS as you see fit. And, in FXS's defence, it is a good way (well, the ONLY way) to bridge analog to IP. A P3 class box should scale to a few dozen extensions no problem. The caveat is if the box is doing other stuff (it shouldn't) and / or if it is transcoding (converting) codecs from one format to another, you might run into performance issues. Best practice is to always use the same codec end-to-end if Asterisk remains in the media stream (which you select using canreinvite=yes or canreinvite=no in sip.conf) and this avoids transcoding on the Asterisk box. Depending on your point of view and your luck in getting a box running, Asterisk is either the coolest thing ever or a gigantic pain in the ass. Patience and problem solving skills will serve you well. -----Original Message----- From: Jim Freeze [mailto:asterisk@freeze.org] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > A single computer will handle hundreds of telephones. Just get a card with > more ports, or use an external gateway.I am sorry, I don't understand. Are you talking about analog FXS phones? All the PCI cards I have seen have a max of 4 FXS lines and the external boxes seem very expensive. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
I think what he means is that an * server can support hundreds of phones because the server connects to the network via a NIC. Port count becomes irrelevant when you thing about VoIP phones connecting to a VoIP server. They connect over the network not point to point. It is just a matter of bandwidth and network topography at that point. If your desire it to connect a bunch of analog phones then you can use ATAs. I would recommend that you just replace them though. You should only need to worry about your POTS lines at this point. If you have 4 POTS lines, a single 4 port TDM card will suffice. Cheers, W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > A single computer will handle hundreds of telephones. Just get a card > with more ports, or use an external gateway.I am sorry, I don't understand. Are you talking about analog FXS phones? All the PCI cards I have seen have a max of 4 FXS lines and the external boxes seem very expensive. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
What about fax machines working over a PRI T1 line? Run FXS ports to each fax machine and the TDM card will convert the digital T1 to analog for faxing? I have no POTS lines, just a T1 (PRI soon if I find out I can use asterisk for regular POTS-type faxing). ---- Begin Original Message ---- From: "Wiley Siler" <wsiler@education2020.com> Sent: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:20:03 -0700 To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP I think what he means is that an * server can support hundreds of phones because the server connects to the network via a NIC. Port count becomes irrelevant when you thing about VoIP phones connecting to a VoIP server. They connect over the network not point to point. It is just a matter of bandwidth and network topography at that point. If your desire it to connect a bunch of analog phones then you can use ATAs. I would recommend that you just replace them though. You should only need to worry about your POTS lines at this point. If you have 4 POTS lines, a single 4 port TDM card will suffice. Cheers, W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > A single computer will handle hundreds oftelephones. Just get a card> with more ports, or use an external gateway.I am sorry, I don't understand. Are you talking about analog FXS phones? All the PCI cards I have seen have a max of 4 FXS lines and the external boxes seem very expensive. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ---- End Original Message ---- Sent by Go2net Mail!
Hi Bryan On 1/11/06, Copeland, Bryan <BCopeland@solacomm.com> wrote:> In one of my configurations I have an office with a digium dual T1 card... > 23 Channel PRI coming in on port 1... Coastcom mux on port2 breaking out FXS > channels.. and voip phones... > > Initially the plan was to use voip phones and use FXS channels for fax > machines.. After putting some phones on the FXS channels and some on the > voip.. I would choose FXS as my primary solution.. The reliability and call > quality was better in our solution.. I will be doing another installation > with only FXS channels and ADSI phones...Wow, that sounds similar to my planned setup. Why do you suppose that the FXS lines were better than voip in your solution. Your results seem opposite of what the majority have been singing. Were your voip phones sharing a network with data traffic? Were the voip phones of a good quality? Did you have problems tweaking the FXS system? Thanks -- Jim Freeze
If you are doing a whole bunch of fax machines then the external solution Brian spoke of is probably best. If we are talking 4 fax machines, you can get a TDM card and 4 FXS modules and connect then right to the * box. However, you have no growth space at that point without hardware changes. Is that an issue or will your needs remain static? My PRI line works just fine for fax. I am configured thusly... PRI T1 (T100P) ---> * Server (NIC) ---> Network ---> SIP ATA ---> Fax Machine This works flawlessly and is a great solution when you only need a couple of fax machines. Asterisk is capable of routing fax from an analog device to a PRI T1 if that is your question. As long as you have a TDM card or ATAs for your analog devices, they will be connected to the * box. PRI has worked fine for me with FAX so there is no need to connect to the PSTN just for fax. YMMV but I bet it is fine. How many fax lines do you need? W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of John Crew Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:43 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: Re: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP What about fax machines working over a PRI T1 line? Run FXS ports to each fax machine and the TDM card will convert the digital T1 to analog for faxing? I have no POTS lines, just a T1 (PRI soon if I find out I can use asterisk for regular POTS-type faxing). ---- Begin Original Message ---- From: "Wiley Siler" <wsiler@education2020.com> Sent: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:20:03 -0700 To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP I think what he means is that an * server can support hundreds of phones because the server connects to the network via a NIC. Port count becomes irrelevant when you thing about VoIP phones connecting to a VoIP server. They connect over the network not point to point. It is just a matter of bandwidth and network topography at that point. If your desire it to connect a bunch of analog phones then you can use ATAs. I would recommend that you just replace them though. You should only need to worry about your POTS lines at this point. If you have 4 POTS lines, a single 4 port TDM card will suffice. Cheers, W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > A single computer will handle hundreds oftelephones. Just get a card> with more ports, or use an external gateway.I am sorry, I don't understand. Are you talking about analog FXS phones? All the PCI cards I have seen have a max of 4 FXS lines and the external boxes seem very expensive. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ---- End Original Message ---- Sent by Go2net Mail! _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>What about fax machines working over a PRI T1 >line? Run FXS ports to each fax machine and the >TDM card will convert the digital T1 to analog >for faxing?>I have no POTS lines, just a T1 (PRI soon if I >find out I can use asterisk for regular POTS-type >faxing).I tried that and wasn't happy with the results (TE110 -> TDM400). There's some frame slippage involved as soon as you hit the PCI bus that's enough to make faxing unstable (your box might fare better tho). It's small, but enough to cause problems. In my dialplan, I use spandsp to rx the fax, and I have an "exception list" of known fax machines that have a problem tying up to spandsp, and if an inbound fax machine's callerid = an entry on the list, Asterisk forwards the call to a regular fax plugged into an Adtran channel bank. Works Good. 50K+ faxes from May to Dec 31,05 with only a 1% failure rate. I maintain the exception list by having a script that examines the generated PDF after fax RX, and if it's less than 46 bytes, it's a bad fax, and it emails me / SMS's me about it. That way, as soon as a bad fax comes in I know about it, and sometimes I can be fast enough to update the exception list between retries, so the remote fax doesn't generate an error for the sender. ---- Begin Original Message ---- From: "Wiley Siler" <wsiler@education2020.com> Sent: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:20:03 -0700 To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP I think what he means is that an * server can support hundreds of phones because the server connects to the network via a NIC. Port count becomes irrelevant when you thing about VoIP phones connecting to a VoIP server. They connect over the network not point to point. It is just a matter of bandwidth and network topography at that point. If your desire it to connect a bunch of analog phones then you can use ATAs. I would recommend that you just replace them though. You should only need to worry about your POTS lines at this point. If you have 4 POTS lines, a single 4 port TDM card will suffice. Cheers, W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > A single computer will handle hundreds oftelephones. Just get a card> with more ports, or use an external gateway.I am sorry, I don't understand. Are you talking about analog FXS phones? All the PCI cards I have seen have a max of 4 FXS lines and the external boxes seem very expensive. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ---- End Original Message ---- Sent by Go2net Mail! _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
The consensus is usually a big NO though some have made more than 2 cards work. I ran my system with 2 four port TDM cards and it worked fine. Others have had nothing but problems. This has to do with IRQs and the PCI bus if memory serves. A quick search should yield info on IRQ and TDM cards. Cheers, W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Philip Edelbrock Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Jim Freeze wrote: [...] > So for 5 phones, I would need 2 cards. And, the O'Reilly book says that > I should not put 2 cards in the same box, so I would need another computer. > [...] Whoa, I'm confused. Can't you use as many cards as you have slots? We've got just one 4-port card, but I've always assumed it was just a matter of purchasing and installing more to get 8 or 12 lines? Phil _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
There is much controversy about this. It is *possible* to do more than 1 card but sometimes it is not practical. Some issues: -You may have an unresolvable interrupt conflict which Would Be Bad when you put in multiple cards -The performance of the cards will become degraded because of the massive amounts of interrupts generated. Using zttest in /usr/src/zaptel can give you a metric on this. If it drops below ~99.98% you will have a problem. -The TDMXXX series of cards requires a power connector from the PC's power supply to generate ring voltage. You may not have a spare one. So you use a splitter. Then you stick in another card. So you use another splitter, and so on and so on until you have this Gordian knot of splitters, and if one fails or becomes intermittent, they all do. Not an optimum solution. The reason the O Reilly book says to not do that is because of the issues above. However, it is possible and it does work. I have done it myself (although only 2 cards) but I was very careful about interrupts, I had spare power plugs, etc. -----Original Message----- From: Philip Edelbrock [mailto:phil@netroedge.com] Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP Jim Freeze wrote: [...] > So for 5 phones, I would need 2 cards. And, the O'Reilly book says that > I should not put 2 cards in the same box, so I would need another computer. > [...] Whoa, I'm confused. Can't you use as many cards as you have slots? We've got just one 4-port card, but I've always assumed it was just a matter of purchasing and installing more to get 8 or 12 lines? Phil _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>Why do you suppose that the FXS lines were better than voip in yoursolution. Your results seem opposite of >what the majority have been singing. Asterisk installs are like snowflakes (this is the beauty of it). There are so many variables involved that each unique set of circumstances on the install site has direct bearing on the appropriateness of the technology used. You have to make an evaluation as to whether the technology you want to use is appropriate in the install context. For example, in an old building with crappy wiring and dodgy power, FXS is probably more appropriate. If you are in the sticks and you can't get broadband or PRI, FXO and FXS is the appropriate choice.
2 fax machines on 2 separate lines. Static needs and would definitely not need more than 4 analog lines for fax, modem, etc. ---- Begin Original Message ---- From: "Wiley Siler" <wsiler@education2020.com> Sent: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 16:18:28 -0700 To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Subject: RE: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP If you are doing a whole bunch of fax machines then the external solution Brian spoke of is probably best. If we are talking 4 fax machines, you can get a TDM card and 4 FXS modules and connect then right to the * box. However, you have no growth space at that point without hardware changes. Is that an issue or will your needs remain static? My PRI line works just fine for fax. I am configured thusly... PRI T1 (T100P) ---> * Server (NIC) ---> Network ---> SIP ATA ---> Fax Machine This works flawlessly and is a great solution when you only need a couple of fax machines. Asterisk is capable of routing fax from an analog device to a PRI T1 if that is your question. As long as you have a TDM card or ATAs for your analog devices, they will be connected to the * box. PRI has worked fine for me with FAX so there is no need to connect to the PSTN just for fax. YMMV but I bet it is fine. How many fax lines do you need? W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of John Crew Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:43 PM To: asterisk-users@lists.digium.com Subject: Re: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP What about fax machines working over a PRI T1 line? Run FXS ports to each fax machine and the TDM card will convert the digital T1 to analog for faxing? I have no POTS lines, just a T1 (PRI soon if I find out I can use asterisk for regular POTS-type faxing). ---- Begin Original Message ---- From: "Wiley Siler" <wsiler@education2020.com> Sent: Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:20:03 -0700 To: "Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion"<asterisk-users@lists.digium.com> Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP I think what he means is that an * server can support hundreds of phones because the server connects to the network via a NIC. Port count becomes irrelevant when you thing about VoIP phones connecting to a VoIP server. They connect over the network not point to point. It is just a matter of bandwidth and network topography at that point. If your desire it to connect a bunch of analog phones then you can use ATAs. I would recommend that you just replace them though. You should only need to worry about your POTS lines at this point. If you have 4 POTS lines, a single 4 port TDM card will suffice. Cheers, W -----Original Message----- From: asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-bounces@lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Jim Freeze Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 2:57 PM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/11/06, William Boehlke <william.boehlke@signate.com> wrote:> > A single computer will handle hundreds oftelephones. Just get a card> with more ports, or use an external gateway.I am sorry, I don't understand. Are you talking about analog FXS phones? All the PCI cards I have seen have a max of 4 FXS lines and the external boxes seem very expensive. -- Jim Freeze _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ---- End Original Message ---- Sent by Go2net Mail! _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ---- End Original Message ---- Sent by Go2net Mail!
> I am setting up a phone system for a small office. > The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. > There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office.> assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect > all the phones to a private ethernet network.You can do this and may it would be the natural way to start, since it's cheaper. I'd recommend buying or borrwing one decent phone to do some testing. I use a Polycom ip500 at home to talk on our office lines and that works very well at around $220 new. I also have an iaxY (~$100) at home and can connect any phone I want. Right now it has a crappy but cordless Seimens on it.> Is there any reason why I would need to consider using > analog phones and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest > way is with voip phones and voice quality should be good > since the phones are on a private network that only has > voice traffic.A factor no one here mentions is user psychological comfort. If the phones are manned by ordinary people, what are they expecting to use as phones? there are millions of non-geek types out there who would abhor seeing a Cisco on their desk and want a phone with a few buttons that works like the phones they've seen all their lives. Not everyone craves phones that look like the Pentagon offices. I know because I have two users and they both are using analog phones to a TDM400 FXS. It happens that I have two X100 FXO for our two POTS lines and one TDM400 in a P3 box with 512G RAM for the 3 phones. I have a crummy analogue phone for me just in case, but also have a Linksys/Sipura and two IAX phones on my desk for testing/evaluation. I mostly use the Sipura at the moment. Oh and also, if the asterisk box fails for any reason, having analog phones can keep phone service available while waiting for the repairs. Especially good are non-powered phones that will work even while AC power is off.
Hi Jim, My decision had more to do with the infrastructure of the existing wiring more than anything else. I really *wanted* to go with voip but I couldn't justify the extra cost since our office is wired for analog. I ended up going with the TE410P Quad span T1 card, 2 PRIs and an adit-600 channel bank for the FXS ports. I really had to do very little to tune the FXS ports other than setting tx and rx gain on the channel bank. We have 5 other branch offices that we are connected to via WAN and we have * servers at each of those locations, doing voip between those and also the larger install that I describe above. So just because you have FXS ports does not mean that you cannot do voip. There's always services like nufone for long distance that you can connect * to. For your smaller setup just evaluate what's there already in terms of network infrastructure then decide what fits best for both your budget and your growth. Best Regards, Jason Stewart On 11/01/06 15:06 -0600, Jim Freeze wrote:> Hi > > I am setting up a phone system for a small office. > The office will have 5-8 phones and a fax line. > There are 4 hunt lines coming into the office. > We have made no hardware purchase yet. > > Being an asterisk newbie, before I suscribed to this list I just > assumed that I would buy voip phones and connect > all the phones to a private ethernet network. > > However, I see many people inquiring about FXS cards. > > Is there any reason why I would need to consider using > analog phones and FXS cards? Seems to me the cheapest > way is with voip phones and voice quality should be good > since the phones are on a private network that only has > voice traffic. > > Thanks > -- > Jim Freeze > _______________________________________________ > --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
>A factor no one here mentions is user psychological comfort.That's a great point. On my home setup the wife avoids using the SNOM's because it looks uber-intimidating and things like call transfer, park etc blows her mind, she doesn't get it. So I dusted off some Vista 350's I had and put them out in the house and she's much more comfortable with them. (although to her credit she is starting to use the SNOM's, just none of the fancy features. Funny, my kids think the SNOM's rock. They intercom each other and play with my custom *XX features all the time) This underscores the need in system design to design it for USERS. I should tatoo it on the back of my hand.
Great points. And the moral of the story is, any sucessful deploy will have a *large* element of the integrator winnowing out exactly what it is that a user expects, then delivering it. This is where Asterisk shines, IMO. If it doesn't exist, make it. If it existed before, emulate it. If it is noticeable by it's absence, fake it. I can't think of a platform that does this even as remotely good as Asterisk. </cheerleader> -----Original Message----- From: Wilson Pickett [mailto:spamsucks2005@gmail.com] Sent: Tuesday, January 24, 2006 9:26 AM To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP On 1/12/06, Colin Anderson <ColinA@landmarkmasterbuilder.com> wrote:> ... On my home setup the wife avoids using the SNOM's > because it looks uber-intimidating and things like call transfer, park etc > blows her mind, she doesn't get it. So I dusted off some Vista 350's Ihad... (checking thread subject, looking both ways befiore crossing) Indeed the women at our office want to know when the phones will be available in something other than what Henry Ford called "several colors, all of them black". The day I got a couple of cheap PA1688 white phones, they loved them ;) But I think they really want blue or something like that. You and I (again generic you) think the Ciscos and Polycoms are neat-looking. More sensitive, yet very intelligent and competent creatures think they look like relics from the militaro-industrial society. In the best of all possible worlds, most of the complex features would be removable. Fortunately on the Polycoms, several are. A final point, as younger people come into the workplace, their experience will be *cellular*, not pbx. All this "dial *89" will be laughable. The company that sees this first will sweep the others into a niche market in a few years... unless we're not using phones at all. _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation provided by Easynews.com -- Asterisk-Users mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users