Hi, I'm in the process of setting up Asterisk in a SOHO environment using ISDN for trunking. More specifically a BRI 2B+D circuit where one SPID is used for the business and the other is used for personal. The circuit already exists, but is presently being interfaced to POTS phones via a TA. This configuration is not very common in the US, but we are fortunate that our LEC offers it price competitively with equivalent POTS services and it makes more sense, both in terms of voice quality (4 wire digital to the PABX) and flexibility. Ideally it would allow any combination of two calls, identified by SPID. If anyone has done anything similar, or has any experience with BRI ISDN, I would appreciate input and direction. If anyone knows where documentation exists on configuring ISDN, that information would also be greatly appreciated. Asterisk has a bit of a learning curve, and ISDN BRI isn't the most widely used or covered aspect of it. BTW, I have a strong telecom background, so the theory part of it will not be a problem, only the necessary documentation to apply it to Asterisk. Thanks, Wilton Helm Embedded System Resources -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20081013/37613563/attachment.htm
I had considered something like this as well, but was convinced to go another direction. I wrote something up about it at the time. http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30444/84/ Michael --Original Message Text--- From: Wilton Helm Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 14:44:26 -0600 Hi, I'm in the process of setting up Asterisk in a SOHO environment using ISDN for trunking. More specifically a BRI 2B+D circuit where one SPID is used for the business and the other is used for personal. The circuit already exists, but is presently being interfaced to POTS phones via a TA. This configuration is not very common in the US, but we are fortunate that our LEC offers it price competitively with equivalent POTS services and it makes more sense, both in terms of voice quality (4 wire digital to the PABX) and flexibility. Ideally it would allow any combination of two calls, identified by SPID. If anyone has done anything similar, or has any experience with BRI ISDN, I would appreciate input and direction. If anyone knows where documentation exists on configuring ISDN, that information would also be greatly appreciated. Asterisk has a bit of a learning curve, and ISDN BRI isn't the most widely used or covered aspect of it. BTW, I have a strong telecom background, so the theory part of it will not be a problem, only the necessary documentation to apply it to Asterisk. Thanks, Wilton Helm Embedded System Resources -- Michael Graves mgraves<at>mstvp.com http://blog.mgraves.org o713-861-4005 c713-201-1262 sip:mjgraves at pixelpower.onsip.com skype mjgraves fwd 54245 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20081013/0e77e14a/attachment.htm
> I'm in the process of setting up Asterisk in a SOHO environment using > ISDN for trunking. More specifically a BRI 2B+D circuit where one SPID > is used for the business and the other is used for personal. The > circuit already exists, but is presently being interfaced to POTS phones > via a TA. > > This configuration is not very common in the US, but we are fortunate > that our LEC offers it price competitively with equivalent POTS services > and it makes more sense, both in terms of voice quality (4 wire digital > to the PABX) and flexibility. > > Ideally it would allow any combination of two calls, identified by SPID. > > If anyone has done anything similar, or has any experience with BRI > ISDN, I would appreciate input and direction. > > If anyone knows where documentation exists on configuring ISDN, that > information would also be greatly appreciated. Asterisk has a bit of a > learning curve, and ISDN BRI isn't the most widely used or covered > aspect of it. BTW, I have a strong telecom background, so the theory > part of it will not be a problem, only the necessary documentation to > apply it to Asterisk.The one solution I've heard, on and off again, that works with Asterisk here in the US is the Eicon Diva cards. There are other solutions. Where I am, we're unreasonably close to a local radio conglomerate that has a number of high power antennas. We found early on that RF interference was a killer, which caused me to run a lot of our telecom and data wiring in conduit. Unfortunately, we discovered that POTS lines were a hell of a mess when connected to anything more complex than a phone or two. Lots of RF interference. Church radio music on Sundays, even. So, we brought our lines in on BRI, which we've used for data and voice elsewhere. Being eternally frustrated with the lack of ISDN support after maybe 2000 here in the US (we have a bunch of interesting ISDN gear from the 90's!), I set out to see what I could do to interface BRI to Asterisk. I *didn't* go the Eicon route, because at the time it was considered relatively unreliable. Instead, we picked up an Adtran Atlas 550, which can handle ISDN BRI, PRI, POTS, etc. We have been using the Atlas as a translator to convert BRI to T1, which works moderately well, but we've seen some issues, mostly in the capabilities of the Adtran (such as an inability to select the desired SPID/DN for outgoing calls). The Adtran has some other amazing capabilities, such as providing FXO/FXS ports, and even ISDN BRI ports for other devices we'd liked hooked into our PBX. Despite that, I'd love to see an ISDN BRI solution for the US. I might be willing to test the Eicon Diva Server card... hm. ... JG -- Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net "We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN) With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.
>I have done this.Good>Why BRIs exist in the US is beyond me.I'm not sure why you say that. It is the only way I know of two get two digital voice grade circuits at prices competitive with POTS. The better question is why the LECs used such poor judgment when they introduced this. Most were charging outrageous prices that had no technical justification and per minute usage fees. They destroyed the market before it got off the ground. I don't use it for data any more now that I have DSL, but it is still a very viable voice channel. If you can, don't go with BRI. Why? (Not that I don't already have it and have been using it for seven years.) Who is the carrier. Qwest (formerly US West or US Worst as some used to call it). So do you have some information about what you did or where to get configuration information? Wilton -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20081013/df0de2ef/attachment.htm
>With ISDN, the conversion is done in your phoneExactly. Or in the case of Asterisk, it is a 4 wire digital right into the switch--no degradation. Even converting back and forth between analog and digital multiple times compromises quality. Try doing a dial-up modem across such a path. The best you will get is 20 - 30 K.>IF you can get a PRI-line for the same price.Not to mention that the interfaces for PRI are about five times as expensive. I'm not sure why. It doesn't seem like it ought to take a lot of electronics to break down the bit stream. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20081013/3d4e77ca/attachment.htm
On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 7:52 PM, Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com>wrote:> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 04:55:01PM -0500, Michael Graves wrote: > > I had converations with both Pika and Xorcom wherein the thought that > > it should be possible using their interface hardware. There might be > > some software changes to be made in their drivers, but BRI should be > > usable in the US. > > Or actually: I suppose that now that Asterisk finally knows that spans > can be of size 2B+1D (as of 1.4.22), chan_dahdi will support US BRI will > with any BRI device that has a Zaptel/DAHDI driver. That should be > either ours (Xorcom) BRI module of the Astribank, Junghanns > quad/octo/duo BRI cards and compatible, or the simple HFC-S -based > single port PCI cards. Sangoma A500 cards should have Zaptel drivers as > well. > > However this is based on quite a few cases and mostly remains to be > tested. > > (The relevant patch to Asterisk is trivial to apply to earlier versions > of 1.4 / 1.2) > >Can you define the SPIDs and what to do with them, otherwise it is fairly useless. -- Thanks, Steve Totaro +18887771888 (Toll Free) +12409381212 (Cell) +12024369784 (Skype) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20081014/c2fb4877/attachment.htm
On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 4:59 PM, Steve Totaro < stotaro at totarotechnologies.com> wrote:> > > On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 7:52 PM, Tzafrir Cohen <tzafrir.cohen at xorcom.com>wrote: > >> On Mon, Oct 13, 2008 at 04:55:01PM -0500, Michael Graves wrote: >> > I had converations with both Pika and Xorcom wherein the thought that >> > it should be possible using their interface hardware. There might be >> > some software changes to be made in their drivers, but BRI should be >> > usable in the US. >> >> Or actually: I suppose that now that Asterisk finally knows that spans >> can be of size 2B+1D (as of 1.4.22), chan_dahdi will support US BRI will >> with any BRI device that has a Zaptel/DAHDI driver. That should be >> either ours (Xorcom) BRI module of the Astribank, Junghanns >> quad/octo/duo BRI cards and compatible, or the simple HFC-S -based >> single port PCI cards. Sangoma A500 cards should have Zaptel drivers as >> well. >> >> However this is based on quite a few cases and mostly remains to be >> tested. >> >> (The relevant patch to Asterisk is trivial to apply to earlier versions >> of 1.4 / 1.2) >> >> > Can you define the SPIDs and what to do with them, otherwise it is fairly > useless. > > -- > Thanks, > Steve Totaro > +18887771888 (Toll Free) > +12409381212 (Cell) > +12024369784 (Skype) >In addition, do the BRI cards/drivers use the US Standards for BRI or the R.O.W (fest of the world)? http://www.smallnetbuilder.com/content/view/30444/84/ Written by Michael Graves, May 20th 2008 -- Thanks, Steve Totaro +18887771888 (Toll Free) +12409381212 (Cell) +12024369784 (Skype) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/attachments/20081014/1d37b828/attachment.htm