I have found that the g729 implementation on asterisk isn't as fantastic as I would have hoped. It works, it saves you bandwidth, but I find that if you're talking to your asterisk box or transcoding the call quality doesn't compare to talking between two quality g729 enabled devices.
If asterisk doesn't put its foot in the door, the quality of the call is better overall. That's the main result I got from my testing, but I wasn't using Zap hardware so maybe if you're using a PRI card, you'll have different results. Another thing to note, if you're making a call through an asterisk box, once the call has gone through, your license won't be occupied, so if you're dealing with routing between endpoints, you technically shouldn't be using up any licenses for those calls. Some of my testing ended up picking the wrong codec for whatever reason so my box was transcoding and having the license made that work as opposed to not. - Ian On 5/9/06, Reza - Asterisk Enthusiast <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
*Michael Tupper, Ian Darwin: * Thanks to both of you for providing me unique perspectives! There is a famous Chinese saying, "When in doubt, ask 3 subject matter experts"... or something like that :). I have found the comfort and peace I was looking for in justifying my costs :). See... my problem is not money... but the question... do I REALLY need to spend that money... and the product and/or service that I need, do I REALLY NEED IT... ??!! And if the answer is yes, I don't mind spending the bux. Sometimes (in most cases) its best not to be more stubborn than the machine. Of course if I have a free choice, I would prefer that. Michael: " In the professional carrier wholesale market, SIP/g729 has become the de facto for VoIP interconnects. " -- I think you hit it dead in the Bulls Eye! After speaking with a bunch of carriers - and these are Tier 1 carriers -- it appears truly, that g729 is the de facto. Not necessarily it is the best technology - but simply because major Tier 1 carriers backed up by the Mighty US Dollars (Might Cannuck Dollars catching up) are using the proprietary switch that utilizes g729. Ian as per your quote, " once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane ", I regret to inform that you are terribly CORRECT :). It is not my intention to foster them, but it is my intention to make money with reasonable investment. A lot of people in the open source community will disagree with the licensing of g729 - but given the circumstances that one wishes to inter-connect with Tier 1 carriers, a $10 per license I believe is reasonable, when you compare the overall cost of other g729 solutions. Now looks like I have to balance the best of both worlds... and in my situation for inter-connectivity with the carriers, as per business endeavors, I'm left with only 1 choice given the circumstances. When compared to actually purchasing a switch capable of g729 - I'm looking at BIG BUX. If you want to purchase a Cisco switch, then looking you are looking at even bigger bux! The cost of the licenses I am happy to bite the bullet as I will be able to recuperate the cost within a month. I think it will only be a matter of time before the Tier 1 carriers will embrace and implement 100% free open source codecs. So, just in case any of you fall in my shoes of making a business decision, below are the comparison for g729 solutions: A 16 port Quintum Switch ~ $2,900 US A 12 channel Cisco Switch ~ $2,400 US A 20 channel License G729 ~ $200 US Asterisk Voip Server with 20 seat G729 enabled ~ Priceless For everything else, there is MasterCard! So I swiped my MasterCard and got what I need :) Oh sorry! Make that Visa. *Cheers!*
