Adolfo R. Brandes wrote:
After combing these lists for clues, we began experimenting
extensively with Asterisk and its software DSP and fax capabilities in
most of their incarnations, such as Rxfax or Iaxmodem/Hylafax,
together with Digium's E1 cards in server-grade Intel motherboards,
all in a dedicated test environment.
Unfortunately, though, we have yet to achieve reliable and
satisfactory results, even with only 1 fax call at a time.
Well, if you weren't just trying to test you could send some logs to an
appropriate mailing list (like iaxmodem-users or whatever would be most
appropriate), and you'd probably get a very quick indication as to why.
However, based on the comments you give I'd suspect that you're having
what people seem to be calling "frame slipping". There seem to be some
motherboards that react poorly with Zap cards (or their respective
drivers) and cause that. Your zttest results should be revealing here.
I don't know that anyone has yet proposed a conclusive solution to that
matter other than to keep trying different motherboards until you find
one that works.
I won't go into the details because we don't need technical support,
given that this is, as of yet, a very loosely defined test. What we
want is is merely a pointer in the right direction. So here it comes:
Has anybody ever achieved, or know of someone who has, reliable 30
simultaneous PRI fax calls using Asterisk and Asterisk-compatible
hardware and software?
Yes. The concurrent calls really isn't that big of a deal, either, if
those are your thoughts. The bigger issue seems to be the quality of
the audio as it is delivered to the fax application/modem.
We are hardware agnostic, so if you say Sangoma's cards do it
better than Digium's, or that Eicon Diva cards' hardware DSP and
chan_capi are the only solution, we have no problem going there.
In my experience Sangoma offers better (or maybe just more caring)
post-sale support than does Digium, however, the "frame slipping" issue
seems to happen with both sets of hardware. Maybe that's because
Sangomas partially use the zaptel driver as well as does the Digium
hardware. As for Eicon Divas being used for IVR, I've never used them
that way.
I would be most thankful, however, for detailed explanations of
successful scenarios, including such things as motherboard make and
model, processor speed, Linux distribution and version, and anything
else you decide to be even marginally pertinent.
The most success I've seen has been to bridge the call through Asterisk
to a T1 fax modem such as a Patton 2977 or an Eicon Diva Server with
HylaFAX running the modems. (So you put a crossover cable between the
T1/E1 fax modem and one of the ports on your TE405P card and bridge the
fax call, after IVR, to the fax port and let HylaFAX take it from there.)
That said, I see no reason why you couldn't have just as much success
with iaxmodem-hylafax or even txfax/rxfax... I just haven't personally
used either of those as much as I have the T1-faxmodem solution.
Lee.
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