Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, John Todd wrote: > >>The PM3 LIVES ON DUDE! :) I'm all about Livingson, and have refused > >>to put the Asscend stuff in my data center. Seriously, Jake over at > >>portmasters.com is doing some good stuff with the PM3. Now that > >>we've got control of ComOS, it is just a matter of time before new > >>ComOS releases start coming out for the unit. Several people have > >>already rolled their own and added a few niggling fixes to the > >>3.9.1c1 code branch. > >> > >>It would be great if we could find a way to use the PM3 as an > >>inbound channel bank for Asterisk though. I have like 7 of them > >>sitting in the back doing nothing.. > >> > >I like that idea. > >I wrote all the drivers for the PM3 and it would fairly easy to do. > >Looking at the prices on portmasters.com, you could have a 2 t1 inbound > >channel bank for about $350. Add another $150 for an extra t1. > >I think we used the same Dallas framers that Digium uses. Uhhh.. Why wouldn't Digium want to provide a Software Only license to run on the hardware platform so that people could pay say.. $500 per PM3 for the software license and use them in the manner that you mention above? Once the development is done, it is a hell of a lot higher profit margin because the hardware is out there and Digium doesn't have any of that cost associated with it. Right now, they have to carry all of the production costs for their varius boards, and the software is being handled by the Open Source community. > >I am a very big * fan and I am feeling a little guilty that I am > >using an ethernet > >only solution. No Digium cards. I would really like to support Digium, but > >I do not want to start pluggin any PCI cards into the box other than an extra > >ethernet or 2. I would love to see Digium come out with a t1/e1 to ethernet > >channel bank. Compared to when we made the PM3 there are some way cool > >processors with built in TDM and ethernet. > > > >Yo Digium, I am hanging out here in CA with nothing better to do than play > >with *. Why don't you contract out and let me and a few of my unemployed > >friends build a little channel bank for you. > > > >-- > >Bob Knight > >[-w] the work option > >[EMAIL PROTECTED] > >925-449-9163 > > > Bob - > You make two good points: > > 1) The PM3 might be an interesting and inexpensive TDMoE Device, or > maybe even a "stupid" IAX2 channelizer. I suspect that Digium will > not help you with this unless you allow them to be the "exclusive" > reseller, since this takes away from their core business of selling > cards. However, even with a bit of a markup, this would still be a > pretty decently priced multi-T1 solution, as long as the used market > can reliably offer these devices at good pricing. > > 2) On the larger discussion, a separate device that provides T1 > termination in a more dense footprint than a PC is obviously showing > some interest, as judged by the number of followup posts on this list > to my original question. There are two devices that I see as useful: > >- an FXO and FXS selectable solution, via RJ11 or Centronics-style > bus connector, in a 1u package that delivers IAX2 out (or, > sub-optimally, TDMoE) Options for this would be built-in codecs. > Pricepoint: <$1100 (the cost of a T100P and a well-equipped channel > bank.) To be successful, this device _must_ support FXO and FXS. > Fail-over dialplans for 911 or other "failsafe" dialing methods would > be good (typical in such devices.) There exist already devices that > fit this description, though they are only SIP or H.323, and they > tend to be way too expensive. > >- a high-density T1 termination system that can handle >8 T1's in a > very small amount of rackspace. DS3 de-muxing onboard would be > optimal, since anyone with >8 T1's is probably getting a DS3 delivery > method, and removing the M13 mux from the rack would be great. > Optimally, a 1u rackmount with T3/E3 coax _and_ 28 RJ-45 connections > (only 17 of which would be used for E3/E1 muxing) Out of this unit > would come IAX2 or (sub-optimally) TDMoE packets to Asterisk peer(s). > This solution quickly gets into the discussion of "why you might > need SS7 for large installations", but I will not address that here, > and we'll assume this is all PRI delivery. > > > JT > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > -- Vice President of N2Net, a New Age Consulting Service, Inc. Company http://www.n2net.net Where everything clicks into place! KP-216-121-ST ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
John Todd wrote: At 11:04 AM -0800 12/5/03, Bob Knight wrote: Greg Boehnlein wrote: On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Bob Knight wrote: Steve Dolloff wrote: I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can find one used. Skip the TNT's. They are really a joke. I will admit, I am a bitter X-Livingston employee. First Lucent bought us for our cool gear, then they bought Ascend for sales and marketing.. I still can't believe they kept the TNT alive and killed PM4. The PM3 LIVES ON DUDE! :) I'm all about Livingson, and have refused to put the Asscend stuff in my data center. Seriously, Jake over at portmasters.com is doing some good stuff with the PM3. Now that we've got control of ComOS, it is just a matter of time before new ComOS releases start coming out for the unit. Several people have already rolled their own and added a few niggling fixes to the 3.9.1c1 code branch. It would be great if we could find a way to use the PM3 as an inbound channel bank for Asterisk though. I have like 7 of them sitting in the back doing nothing.. I like that idea. I wrote all the drivers for the PM3 and it would fairly easy to do. Looking at the prices on portmasters.com, you could have a 2 t1 inbound channel bank for about $350. Add another $150 for an extra t1. I think we used the same Dallas framers that Digium uses. I am a very big * fan and I am feeling a little guilty that I am using an ethernet only solution. No Digium cards. I would really like to support Digium, but I do not want to start pluggin any PCI cards into the box other than an extra ethernet or 2. I would love to see Digium come out with a t1/e1 to ethernet channel bank. Compared to when we made the PM3 there are some way cool processors with built in TDM and ethernet. Yo Digium, I am hanging out here in CA with nothing better to do than play with *. Why don't you contract out and let me and a few of my unemployed friends build a little channel bank for you. -- Bob Knight [-w] the work option [EMAIL PROTECTED] 925-449-9163 Bob - You make two good points: 1) The PM3 might be an interesting and inexpensive TDMoE Device, or maybe even a "stupid" IAX2 channelizer. I suspect that Digium will not help you with this unless you allow them to be the "exclusive" reseller, since this takes away from their core business of selling cards. However, even with a bit of a markup, this would still be a pretty decently priced multi-T1 solution, as long as the used market can reliably offer these devices at good pricing. 2) On the larger discussion, a separate device that provides T1 termination in a more dense footprint than a PC is obviously showing some interest, as judged by the number of followup posts on this list to my original question. There are two devices that I see as useful: - an FXO and FXS selectable solution, via RJ11 or Centronics-style bus connector, in a 1u package that delivers IAX2 out (or, sub-optimally, TDMoE) Options for this would be built-in codecs. Pricepoint: <$1100 (the cost of a T100P and a well-equipped channel bank.) To be successful, this device _must_ support FXO and FXS. Fail-over dialplans for 911 or other "failsafe" dialing methods would be good (typical in such devices.) There exist already devices that fit this description, though they are only SIP or H.323, and they tend to be way too expensive. - a high-density T1 termination system that can handle >8 T1's in a very small amount of rackspace. DS3 de-muxing onboard would be optimal, since anyone with >8 T1's is probably getting a DS3 delivery method, and removing the M13 mux from the rack would be great. Optimally, a 1u rackmount with T3/E3 coax _and_ 28 RJ-45 connections (only 17 of which would be used for E3/E1 muxing) Out of this unit would come IAX2 or (sub-optimally) TDMoE packets to Asterisk peer(s). This solution quickly gets into the discussion of "why you might need SS7 for large installations", but I will not address that here, and we'll assume this is all PRI delivery. JT I would really like to see both of these devices. I would buy both of these devices. I do not want to build and sell these devices. I want Digium to build and sell these devices. I want Digium to contract out to me to help them bring these to market in a timely fashion. OK, I am just looking for a way to make a little money, ie unemployed nerd. This would be so much easier to build with todays processors compared to what we had to work with when we built Portmasters. -- Bob Knight [-w] the work option [EMAIL PROTECTED] 925-449-9163 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, John Todd wrote: >- a high-density T1 termination system that can handle >8 T1's in a > very small amount of rackspace. DS3 de-muxing onboard would be > optimal, since anyone with >8 T1's is probably getting a DS3 delivery > method, and removing the M13 mux from the rack would be great. > Optimally, a 1u rackmount with T3/E3 coax _and_ 28 RJ-45 connections > (only 17 of which would be used for E3/E1 muxing) Out of this unit > would come IAX2 or (sub-optimally) TDMoE packets to Asterisk peer(s). > This solution quickly gets into the discussion of "why you might > need SS7 for large installations", but I will not address that here, > and we'll assume this is all PRI delivery. One thing I would like to see if gr303 in and outbound. I tried to find out from the openss7 people what shape their gr303 stack was in but got no reply. dave -- Dave Weis "I believe there are more instances of the abridgment [EMAIL PROTECTED] of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations."- James Madison ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
At 11:04 AM -0800 12/5/03, Bob Knight wrote: Greg Boehnlein wrote: On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Bob Knight wrote: Steve Dolloff wrote: I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can find one used. Skip the TNT's. They are really a joke. I will admit, I am a bitter X-Livingston employee. First Lucent bought us for our cool gear, then they bought Ascend for sales and marketing.. I still can't believe they kept the TNT alive and killed PM4. The PM3 LIVES ON DUDE! :) I'm all about Livingson, and have refused to put the Asscend stuff in my data center. Seriously, Jake over at portmasters.com is doing some good stuff with the PM3. Now that we've got control of ComOS, it is just a matter of time before new ComOS releases start coming out for the unit. Several people have already rolled their own and added a few niggling fixes to the 3.9.1c1 code branch. It would be great if we could find a way to use the PM3 as an inbound channel bank for Asterisk though. I have like 7 of them sitting in the back doing nothing.. I like that idea. I wrote all the drivers for the PM3 and it would fairly easy to do. Looking at the prices on portmasters.com, you could have a 2 t1 inbound channel bank for about $350. Add another $150 for an extra t1. I think we used the same Dallas framers that Digium uses. I am a very big * fan and I am feeling a little guilty that I am using an ethernet only solution. No Digium cards. I would really like to support Digium, but I do not want to start pluggin any PCI cards into the box other than an extra ethernet or 2. I would love to see Digium come out with a t1/e1 to ethernet channel bank. Compared to when we made the PM3 there are some way cool processors with built in TDM and ethernet. Yo Digium, I am hanging out here in CA with nothing better to do than play with *. Why don't you contract out and let me and a few of my unemployed friends build a little channel bank for you. -- Bob Knight [-w] the work option [EMAIL PROTECTED] 925-449-9163 Bob - You make two good points: 1) The PM3 might be an interesting and inexpensive TDMoE Device, or maybe even a "stupid" IAX2 channelizer. I suspect that Digium will not help you with this unless you allow them to be the "exclusive" reseller, since this takes away from their core business of selling cards. However, even with a bit of a markup, this would still be a pretty decently priced multi-T1 solution, as long as the used market can reliably offer these devices at good pricing. 2) On the larger discussion, a separate device that provides T1 termination in a more dense footprint than a PC is obviously showing some interest, as judged by the number of followup posts on this list to my original question. There are two devices that I see as useful: - an FXO and FXS selectable solution, via RJ11 or Centronics-style bus connector, in a 1u package that delivers IAX2 out (or, sub-optimally, TDMoE) Options for this would be built-in codecs. Pricepoint: <$1100 (the cost of a T100P and a well-equipped channel bank.) To be successful, this device _must_ support FXO and FXS. Fail-over dialplans for 911 or other "failsafe" dialing methods would be good (typical in such devices.) There exist already devices that fit this description, though they are only SIP or H.323, and they tend to be way too expensive. - a high-density T1 termination system that can handle >8 T1's in a very small amount of rackspace. DS3 de-muxing onboard would be optimal, since anyone with >8 T1's is probably getting a DS3 delivery method, and removing the M13 mux from the rack would be great. Optimally, a 1u rackmount with T3/E3 coax _and_ 28 RJ-45 connections (only 17 of which would be used for E3/E1 muxing) Out of this unit would come IAX2 or (sub-optimally) TDMoE packets to Asterisk peer(s). This solution quickly gets into the discussion of "why you might need SS7 for large installations", but I will not address that here, and we'll assume this is all PRI delivery. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Imagestream is really not the company to look to for this kind of solution. They are not really interested in selling anything other than their complete routers from what i can tell. Sangome will have a DS3 card out shortly I believe. It should have the capability to work down to the DS0 level from what I recall. I know for sure it will be capable of channelized DS3 (1 ds3 to 28T1s). Seems to me that the voice signal processing on 672 DS0s might be a little touch for todays PC type processors, this is purely speculation though. Matt On Fri, 2003-12-05 at 11:37, Sam Bingner wrote: > Well, we know that we would be able to handle a partial DS3... assuming such a > thing is possible. Wouldn't people prefer a partial DS3 for say... 12T1's to > no way to do that many? > > Why not just try to get the card working, then testing would show exactly how > much data could be handled... > > Actually, we should be able to get a pretty good idea on that by using two > gigabit interfaces and VoIP? > > Sam > > > Quoting Andy Hester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > > > > >I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead > > > >engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their > > > DS-3 cards > > > >using software processing because it would take too much > > > processing power. > > > >It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that > > > >incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of > > > anything currently > > > >available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the > > > answer is > > > >no on the DS-3. > > > > > > > >Andy > > > > > > I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some > > > minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently > > > handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing > > > more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It > > > would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, > > > 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements > > > of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may > > > be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this > > > impossible; I don't know. > > > > > > JT > > > ___ > > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > > > The guy did leave open the possibility that he could be wrong, and said that > > he'd be glad to answer any further questions or if we had some other way of > > doing it. If you or some of the others think that this should be possible > > then perhaps we could get together a list of more specific questions to ask. > > > > Thoughts? > > > > Andy > > > > ___ > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > > > > > > - > This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ > > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thursday 04 December 2003 14:06, John Todd wrote: > Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible > with Zap channels. (or are there?) This isn't so much a technological limit as much as a detail of implementation, but the current Zaptel drivers have a limit of 252 channels per machine. This is due to each channel number getting assigned a device minor number, which has a limit of 256 (4 are reserved by zaptel for special purposes). Any attempt to write a driver for a DS3 card should take this into account. I don't know if expanding beyond 252 would be an easy change to the Zaptel architecture or if this would require a major change to the way the drivers are written; but it is a limitation that needs to be considered. -Tilghman ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this impossible; I don't know. JT Try to look this building block that should allow you to do T3 to TDMoE at wirespeed. The chip can move data between T3 and Ethernet without touching the PCI bus but you can still keep full control via the PCI bus if you want to. http://products.zarlink.com/product_profiles/ZL50111.htm ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
There are a number of vendors for DS3 cards -- The issue when I last looked at these cards (> 1yr ago) was that many of them were not fully channelized -- i.e. the cards did not support breaking the data stream into indiv 64Kbps DS0s. At the time I was talking with the vendors, all of them were talking about forthcoming DS3 cards what would be able to do this. So you might be able to find some DS3 cards that support this now. Jim James H. Thompson [EMAIL PROTECTED] - Original Message - From: "Andy Hester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 7:58 AM Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? > > > > > >I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead > > >engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their > > DS-3 cards > > >using software processing because it would take too much > > processing power. > > >It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that > > >incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of > > anything currently > > >available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the > > answer is > > >no on the DS-3. > > > > > >Andy > > > > I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some > > minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently > > handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing > > more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It > > would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, > > 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements > > of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may > > be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this > > impossible; I don't know. > > > > JT > > ___ > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > The guy did leave open the possibility that he could be wrong, and said that > he'd be glad to answer any further questions or if we had some other way of > doing it. If you or some of the others think that this should be possible > then perhaps we could get together a list of more specific questions to ask. > > Thoughts? > > Andy > > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Greg Boehnlein wrote: On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Bob Knight wrote: Steve Dolloff wrote: I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can find one used. Skip the TNT's. They are really a joke. I will admit, I am a bitter X-Livingston employee. First Lucent bought us for our cool gear, then they bought Ascend for sales and marketing.. I still can't believe they kept the TNT alive and killed PM4. The PM3 LIVES ON DUDE! :) I'm all about Livingson, and have refused to put the Asscend stuff in my data center. Seriously, Jake over at portmasters.com is doing some good stuff with the PM3. Now that we've got control of ComOS, it is just a matter of time before new ComOS releases start coming out for the unit. Several people have already rolled their own and added a few niggling fixes to the 3.9.1c1 code branch. It would be great if we could find a way to use the PM3 as an inbound channel bank for Asterisk though. I have like 7 of them sitting in the back doing nothing.. I like that idea. I wrote all the drivers for the PM3 and it would fairly easy to do. Looking at the prices on portmasters.com, you could have a 2 t1 inbound channel bank for about $350. Add another $150 for an extra t1. I think we used the same Dallas framers that Digium uses. I am a very big * fan and I am feeling a little guilty that I am using an ethernet only solution. No Digium cards. I would really like to support Digium, but I do not want to start pluggin any PCI cards into the box other than an extra ethernet or 2. I would love to see Digium come out with a t1/e1 to ethernet channel bank. Compared to when we made the PM3 there are some way cool processors with built in TDM and ethernet. Yo Digium, I am hanging out here in CA with nothing better to do than play with *. Why don't you contract out and let me and a few of my unemployed friends build a little channel bank for you. -- Bob Knight [-w] the work option [EMAIL PROTECTED] 925-449-9163 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Fri, Dec 05, 2003 at 11:58:44AM -0600, Andy Hester wrote: > > The guy did leave open the possibility that he could be wrong, and said that > he'd be glad to answer any further questions or if we had some other way of > doing it. If you or some of the others think that this should be possible > then perhaps we could get together a list of more specific questions to ask. > Did he have the impression that the idea was to terminate the voice traffic on the box with the DS3, or just switch it out as IAX2 or TDMoE? My impression is that it should be a question of just dealing with line timing and reading/writing bits, which is not all that different from data. But then again I am ignorant of the design and capabilities of these cards... -w -- /~\ The ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> > > >using software processing because it would take too much > > > processing power. He might mean the processing power of the controller on the card, not the PC it's sitting in. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Well, we know that we would be able to handle a partial DS3... assuming such a thing is possible. Wouldn't people prefer a partial DS3 for say... 12T1's to no way to do that many? Why not just try to get the card working, then testing would show exactly how much data could be handled... Actually, we should be able to get a pretty good idea on that by using two gigabit interfaces and VoIP? Sam Quoting Andy Hester <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>: > > > > > >I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead > > >engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their > > DS-3 cards > > >using software processing because it would take too much > > processing power. > > >It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that > > >incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of > > anything currently > > >available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the > > answer is > > >no on the DS-3. > > > > > >Andy > > > > I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some > > minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently > > handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing > > more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It > > would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, > > 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements > > of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may > > be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this > > impossible; I don't know. > > > > JT > > ___ > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > The guy did leave open the possibility that he could be wrong, and said that > he'd be glad to answer any further questions or if we had some other way of > doing it. If you or some of the others think that this should be possible > then perhaps we could get together a list of more specific questions to ask. > > Thoughts? > > Andy > > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > - This mail sent through IMP: http://horde.org/imp/ ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
- Original Message - From: "Andy Hester" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 05, 2003 12:58 PM Subject: RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? > > > > > >I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead > > >engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their > > DS-3 cards > > >using software processing because it would take too much > > processing power. > > >It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that > > >incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of > > anything currently > > >available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the > > answer is > > >no on the DS-3. > > > > > >Andy > > > > I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some > > minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently > > handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing > > more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It > > would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, > > 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements > > of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may > > be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this > > impossible; I don't know. > > > > JT > > ___ > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > > The guy did leave open the possibility that he could be wrong, and said that > he'd be glad to answer any further questions or if we had some other way of > doing it. If you or some of the others think that this should be possible > then perhaps we could get together a list of more specific questions to ask. > > Thoughts? My thinking is that this is a typical answer from the voice equipment companies that are use to doing voice processing in hardware DSPs. I don't think they know the capabilities of Asterisk. I would suggest getting Digium involved. If anyone can do it they should be able to. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> > > >I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead > >engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their > DS-3 cards > >using software processing because it would take too much > processing power. > >It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that > >incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of > anything currently > >available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the > answer is > >no on the DS-3. > > > >Andy > > I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some > minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently > handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing > more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It > would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, > 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements > of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may > be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this > impossible; I don't know. > > JT > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users The guy did leave open the possibility that he could be wrong, and said that he'd be glad to answer any further questions or if we had some other way of doing it. If you or some of the others think that this should be possible then perhaps we could get together a list of more specific questions to ask. Thoughts? Andy ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
At 10:42 AM -0600 12/5/03, Andy Hester wrote: > >I have been mulling over what it would take to get drivers done for >ImageStream's products. They have a component architecture that is supposed >to reduce development time/cost. The component stuff is open source. The >part of the driver that you have to write can be open source or proprietary. >I am not much of a coder, but someone more knowledgeable may be able to do >it without too much trouble. I am an ImageStream reseller - if you need >hardware I'll give you good pricing. ;) > >Andy Shoot, set me up with 42 2u servers with dual TE410P boards, and then 12 M13 muxes, and then 1 12-port DS3-to-OC12 mux (or 3 DS3-to-OC3 muxes, and one 3 port OC3-to-OC12 mux) and we can even test one of those OC12 boards that ImageStream sells! Why don't you ping someone at ImageStream and see if they're willing to offer a DS3 developer kit for some interval (6 months? 8 months?) to a developer if they show appropriate interest and expertise. Anyone want to volunteer? Actually, I'd ask a senior developer at ImageStream to see if they think it's even possible first; they'll at least be able to say if it's in the realm of sanity. You have the inside track; let us know what you hear. > JT I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their DS-3 cards using software processing because it would take too much processing power. It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of anything currently available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the answer is no on the DS-3. Andy I have no reason to disbelieve this report, but I will offer some minor scepticism at this reply. A well-equipped PC can currently handle 8 T1 channels, and it seems that only the IRQ issue is causing more channels to not be viable in the current TE410P environment. It would seem reasonable to think that a very well equipped PC (4-way, 8-way?) would be able to handle the "processing power" requirements of a DS3, whatever was meant by that statement. Of course, there may be other underlying issues specific to ImageStream that make this impossible; I don't know. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> > > >I have been mulling over what it would take to get drivers done for > >ImageStream's products. They have a component architecture that > is supposed > >to reduce development time/cost. The component stuff is open > source. The > >part of the driver that you have to write can be open source or > proprietary. > >I am not much of a coder, but someone more knowledgeable may be > able to do > >it without too much trouble. I am an ImageStream reseller - if you need > >hardware I'll give you good pricing. ;) > > > >Andy > > > Shoot, set me up with 42 2u servers > with dual TE410P boards, and then 12 M13 muxes, and then 1 12-port > DS3-to-OC12 mux (or 3 DS3-to-OC3 muxes, and one 3 port OC3-to-OC12 > mux) and we can even test one of those OC12 boards that ImageStream > sells! > > Why don't you ping someone at ImageStream and see if they're willing > to offer a DS3 developer kit for some interval (6 months? 8 months?) > to a developer if they show appropriate interest and expertise. > Anyone want to volunteer? > > Actually, I'd ask a senior developer at ImageStream to see if they > think it's even possible first; they'll at least be able to say if > it's in the realm of sanity. You have the inside track; let us know > what you hear. > > JT > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users I talked to Imagestream this morning about the possibilites. Their lead engineer said that there would be no way to do voice over their DS-3 cards using software processing because it would take too much processing power. It would be possible to do some custom design for their boards that incorpotates hardware processing, but he doesn't know of anything currently available. So unless there's something I/he missed, I guess the answer is no on the DS-3. Andy ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
My understanding is that the ascend gear only speaks IPDC and not MGCP, so not sure it would even work with asterisk. On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 15:09, Steve Dolloff wrote: > I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a > TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The > APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can > find one used. > > Stephen > > > -Original Message- > > From: Ernest W. Lessenger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:51 PM > > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? > > > > At 02:34 PM 12/4/2003, you wrote: > > >However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, > is > > it > > >really true to say that the traditional telco cards are > astronomically > > >priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month > on a > > >DS3? > > > > Eight quad-span T-1 cards from Digium: $8,970 > > Three reasonable-quality asterisk servers: $1,000 > > One T-1/DS-3 MUX: $5000 > > > > Total system cost: $14,970 > > > > That actually sounds quite reasonable to me. However, if I were doing > this > > myself I would look hard at getting a MAX TNT with VoIP capability off > > eBay. The price would be equivalent or less, the interface would be > more > > complicated, but all the DSP would be done by the MAX. > > > > --Ernest > > > > > > ___ > > Asterisk-Users mailing list > > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> I am uncertain of PCI bus speed limits - too many conflicting reports > are wedged into my head. > > However, the intent here is to dump calls out via VoIP and not simply > switch between channels elsewhere on the DS3, so overcoming that > limitation needs to be addressed (if it exists at all, as a follow-up > post has countered) or some other non-PCI solution created. Ideally, > I'd like to see TDM on DS3 in, IAX2 on ethernet out after some > minimal call control through a context. I assume that you are suggesting G.711 over IAX2 so there is limited CPU resource used on codec? Linus ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 02:53:43PM -0600, Steven Critchfield wrote: > On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 14:06, John Todd wrote: > > Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible > > with Zap channels. (or are there?) > > > > Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be > > used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such > > a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. > > Your first problem will be bus speeds. A single DS3 is 44.736Mbps. each > way. So if you double this and get the 89.472Mbps, you are going to be > coming close to the real limits of the 32/33mhz PCI bus without having > done any work on the data you are shuffling. So while it could be done > here, I'd start worrying about stability. Sure you could switch up to > faster PCI buses like the 64/66mhz bus, but then you will start limiting > what systems you can use. Then again, if you are putting that many > channels through a single machine, there wasn't many choices for the > hardware to begin with. > Don't get confused by Megabits and megabytes. A 32/33 PCI bus has a max (theoritical) bandwidth of 133 Megabytes per second. That's about 1 Gigabit. So as long as you don't do much other things on the bus (for latency concerns), 89 Mbps is ok on standard PCI. Channelized DS3 boards do exist, and writing a zaptel driver for it should not be too hard. What I'm not sure, though, is whether telcos provide it to end users for voice services. At least here in Europe, the telco would rather run the DS3 to your building, then split it up in a bunch of E1 on their own CPE. -- Nicolas Bougues Axialys Interactive ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 10:34:02PM -, Linus Surguy wrote: > > I don't want to criticize your idea, but you do have to consider certain > > points. Starting from (as has already been mentioned) the bandwidth of DS3 > > is far too much to reasonably shove down the PCI bus without data loss / > > excessive overheads. > > ??? > > a standard 32 bit 33MHz PCI bus has a maximum bandwidth of > 133MBps == 1Gbps. a DS3 is 45Mbps. even if you pass the data > over the bus 10 times, you're still only using up half the > peak bandwidth. Forgive me, it was a late at night comment after drinking too much - I don't know what I was thinking! However, as a general principle, if the PC was to pull traffic off the card, switch it (i.e. reorder it) and put it back on, it would probably take some time to get over the various timeing and synchronisation issues that this would present. Linus ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> >I have been mulling over what it would take to get drivers done for > >ImageStream's products. They have a component architecture that > is supposed > >to reduce development time/cost. The component stuff is open > source. The > >part of the driver that you have to write can be open source or > proprietary. > >I am not much of a coder, but someone more knowledgeable may be > able to do > >it without too much trouble. I am an ImageStream reseller - if you need > >hardware I'll give you good pricing. ;) > > > >Andy > > > Shoot, set me up with 42 2u servers > with dual TE410P boards, and then 12 M13 muxes, and then 1 12-port > DS3-to-OC12 mux (or 3 DS3-to-OC3 muxes, and one 3 port OC3-to-OC12 > mux) and we can even test one of those OC12 boards that ImageStream > sells! > > Why don't you ping someone at ImageStream and see if they're willing > to offer a DS3 developer kit for some interval (6 months? 8 months?) > to a developer if they show appropriate interest and expertise. > Anyone want to volunteer? > > Actually, I'd ask a senior developer at ImageStream to see if they > think it's even possible first; they'll at least be able to say if > it's in the realm of sanity. You have the inside track; let us know > what you hear. > > JT > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users I'll follow up on this tommorrow and let you know what I hear Andy ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> Actually, I'd ask a senior developer at ImageStream to see if they > think it's even possible first; they'll at least be able to say if I send this thread to someone at Imagestream... ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
At 8:47 PM -0600 12/4/03, Andy Hester wrote: > The data-only cards for DS3 seem to be in the "reasonable" price range, though I have _no_ idea if they could be turned into TDM-capable cards. Examples that were shown to me: http://oem.imagestream.com/PCI_720.html http://www.ace-electronics.com/Hardware/T1E1J1/wanPCI-1T3.html A little more time with Google perhaps would discover other solutions. These are, from what I gather, very inexpensive devices in the grand scheme of things, and I believe some already offer Linux drivers (though no mention of open source that I could find, I imagine that these companies will be all over opening up more markets for their cards.) Of course, Digium could keep it's leadership and our (collective) money by starting to poke around at such a driver or card. It's really a chicken-egg situation: nobody will want to muck with driver authorship or card production until there are buyers, and there won't be any buyers of such "experimental" technology unless it's cheap to experiment with, just like the T100P cards are. Open source is still scary to bell-heads, and they will resist until they actually see (with their own eyes) a working system that replaces their $100k CisNorSiemAvaytelensaco boxes with a $7k PC/card combination. Even then, it's still an uphill battle, but at least it's a battle, whereas right now it's a complete non-starter to open one's mouth about open source telephony gatewaying at truly large scale installations. And, to be honest, the telco guys are correct at this moment. > JT I have been mulling over what it would take to get drivers done for ImageStream's products. They have a component architecture that is supposed to reduce development time/cost. The component stuff is open source. The part of the driver that you have to write can be open source or proprietary. I am not much of a coder, but someone more knowledgeable may be able to do it without too much trouble. I am an ImageStream reseller - if you need hardware I'll give you good pricing. ;) Andy Shoot, set me up with 42 2u servers with dual TE410P boards, and then 12 M13 muxes, and then 1 12-port DS3-to-OC12 mux (or 3 DS3-to-OC3 muxes, and one 3 port OC3-to-OC12 mux) and we can even test one of those OC12 boards that ImageStream sells! Why don't you ping someone at ImageStream and see if they're willing to offer a DS3 developer kit for some interval (6 months? 8 months?) to a developer if they show appropriate interest and expertise. Anyone want to volunteer? Actually, I'd ask a senior developer at ImageStream to see if they think it's even possible first; they'll at least be able to say if it's in the realm of sanity. You have the inside track; let us know what you hear. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, Bob Knight wrote: > Steve Dolloff wrote: > > >I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a > >TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The > >APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can > >find one used. > > Skip the TNT's. They are really a joke. > I will admit, I am a bitter X-Livingston employee. > First Lucent bought us for our cool gear, then they bought > Ascend for sales and marketing.. > I still can't believe they kept the TNT alive and killed PM4. The PM3 LIVES ON DUDE! :) I'm all about Livingson, and have refused to put the Asscend stuff in my data center. Seriously, Jake over at portmasters.com is doing some good stuff with the PM3. Now that we've got control of ComOS, it is just a matter of time before new ComOS releases start coming out for the unit. Several people have already rolled their own and added a few niggling fixes to the 3.9.1c1 code branch. It would be great if we could find a way to use the PM3 as an inbound channel bank for Asterisk though. I have like 7 of them sitting in the back doing nothing.. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> > The data-only cards for DS3 seem to be in the "reasonable" price > range, though I have _no_ idea if they could be turned into > TDM-capable cards. Examples that were shown to me: > > http://oem.imagestream.com/PCI_720.html > http://www.ace-electronics.com/Hardware/T1E1J1/wanPCI-1T3.html > > A little more time with Google perhaps would discover other > solutions. These are, from what I gather, very inexpensive devices > in the grand scheme of things, and I believe some already offer Linux > drivers (though no mention of open source that I could find, I > imagine that these companies will be all over opening up more markets > for their cards.) > > Of course, Digium could keep it's leadership and our (collective) > money by starting to poke around at such a driver or card. It's > really a chicken-egg situation: nobody will want to muck with driver > authorship or card production until there are buyers, and there won't > be any buyers of such "experimental" technology unless it's cheap to > experiment with, just like the T100P cards are. Open source is still > scary to bell-heads, and they will resist until they actually see > (with their own eyes) a working system that replaces their $100k > CisNorSiemAvaytelensaco boxes with a $7k PC/card combination. Even > then, it's still an uphill battle, but at least it's a battle, > whereas right now it's a complete non-starter to open one's mouth > about open source telephony gatewaying at truly large scale > installations. And, to be honest, the telco guys are correct at this > moment. > > JT > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users I have been mulling over what it would take to get drivers done for ImageStream's products. They have a component architecture that is supposed to reduce development time/cost. The component stuff is open source. The part of the driver that you have to write can be open source or proprietary. I am not much of a coder, but someone more knowledgeable may be able to do it without too much trouble. I am an ImageStream reseller - if you need hardware I'll give you good pricing. ;) Andy ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
At 8:15 AM +0800 12/5/03, Steve Underwood wrote: John Todd wrote: Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible with Zap channels. (or are there?) Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. I think there are quite a few discouraging comments to be made on that question. Firstly, most companies that produce telecom hardware have silly overhead, and thus the price of their cards is astronomical. Secondly, most companies that produce telecom hardware are of the opinion that transcoding (compression) should be done via DSP's, which inflates the cost of the card significantly. Thirdly, most telecom hardware vendors would not consider allowing their drivers into the public domain if such development were to happen. I've talked to some parties (you know who you are) who have expressed some interest in building this type of interface, but a situation where I can actually put my hands on equipment is far better than speculative interest by those who have not even decided to go forward with design, no matter how interesting the end product sounds on the whiteboard. However, regardless of all these negatives, I'm interested in any vendors anyone can offer as a starting point. [snip] I think this is a worthwhile thing to investigate. Does anyone here have experience with higher order cards under Linux? Which ones work well, and have solid drivers? Although the driver would (probably) need to be heavily modified if it is currently a data, rather than telephony, oriented driver, a good existing driver should save a lot of work. A DS3 is well within a PCI channel's capacity (the sum of the two directions is less than a 100mb Ethernet, although the DS3 is continuous), but it is quite a lot of data. A suitable card would need an efficient interface if this is to work. For the Zaptel environment that would mean that it can burst data in 1ms (8 sample chunks), and would need to bus master the data into memory in a form that doesn't require masses of manipulation by software - e.g. reshuffling out of sequence data. Doing that for so many channels might create interesting latency challenges :-) Still, if you don't try, you can't start to address these issues, and work out a solution. It shouldn't be impractical to make a DS3 to TDMoE solution, provided the DS3 hardware is right, and the PC has no quirky throughput issues. This subject often comes up on the IRC channel. There seem to be a number of people interested in higher order links, but it really needs some positive action somewhere to kick off a real project. Regards, Steve The data-only cards for DS3 seem to be in the "reasonable" price range, though I have _no_ idea if they could be turned into TDM-capable cards. Examples that were shown to me: http://oem.imagestream.com/PCI_720.html http://www.ace-electronics.com/Hardware/T1E1J1/wanPCI-1T3.html A little more time with Google perhaps would discover other solutions. These are, from what I gather, very inexpensive devices in the grand scheme of things, and I believe some already offer Linux drivers (though no mention of open source that I could find, I imagine that these companies will be all over opening up more markets for their cards.) Of course, Digium could keep it's leadership and our (collective) money by starting to poke around at such a driver or card. It's really a chicken-egg situation: nobody will want to muck with driver authorship or card production until there are buyers, and there won't be any buyers of such "experimental" technology unless it's cheap to experiment with, just like the T100P cards are. Open source is still scary to bell-heads, and they will resist until they actually see (with their own eyes) a working system that replaces their $100k CisNorSiemAvaytelensaco boxes with a $7k PC/card combination. Even then, it's still an uphill battle, but at least it's a battle, whereas right now it's a complete non-starter to open one's mouth about open source telephony gatewaying at truly large scale installations. And, to be honest, the telco guys are correct at this moment. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, John Todd wrote: To Steven's comments: Yes, I have considered multiple Asterisk devices and I am very aware of de-muxing DS3's into individual T1's or PRI's (which bring it's own set of problems, since there is no multi-PRI D-channel support in * at the moment) Ahh.. bugger.. Should I take this to mean that Asterisk on a 4 T1/PRI card does not support NFAS? Correct, it does not. There have been discussions about wanting it, but either a) nobody has done the code or submitted the code, or b) nobody has paid Digium to create the code. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> I know of OC3 ATM cards for linux, but AFAIK few telcos > want to do VoATM these days, do you know of an OC3 SONET > card? I can't find one even for POS... Hmm...I was thinking Imagestream, but now I look closely their cards are all ATM. Still, it might be worth talking to someone there (Jeff for example) to see what they can do. If there's $$ in this market, they'd be a good vendor to go after it. I suspect that this problem will be addressed by some big honking box which has an OC-3/Sonet in one side and GigE/VoIP out the other side. Clearly one could build such a box with Linux, if the cards existed. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Steve Dolloff wrote: I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can find one used. Stephen Skip the TNT's. They are really a joke. I will admit, I am a bitter X-Livingston employee. First Lucent bought us for our cool gear, then they bought Ascend for sales and marketing.. I still can't believe they kept the TNT alive and killed PM4. -Original Message- From: Ernest W. Lessenger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? At 02:34 PM 12/4/2003, you wrote: However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is it really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a DS3? Eight quad-span T-1 cards from Digium: $8,970 Three reasonable-quality asterisk servers: $1,000 One T-1/DS-3 MUX: $5000 Total system cost: $14,970 That actually sounds quite reasonable to me. However, if I were doing this myself I would look hard at getting a MAX TNT with VoIP capability off eBay. The price would be equivalent or less, the interface would be more complicated, but all the DSP would be done by the MAX. --Ernest ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users -- Bob Knight [-w] the work option [EMAIL PROTECTED] 925-449-9163 ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, 4 Dec 2003, John Todd wrote: > To Steven's comments: Yes, I have considered multiple Asterisk > devices and I am very aware of de-muxing DS3's into individual T1's > or PRI's (which bring it's own set of problems, since there is no > multi-PRI D-channel support in * at the moment) Ahh.. bugger.. Should I take this to mean that Asterisk on a 4 T1/PRI card does not support NFAS? ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
John Todd wrote: Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible with Zap channels. (or are there?) Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. I think there are quite a few discouraging comments to be made on that question. Firstly, most companies that produce telecom hardware have silly overhead, and thus the price of their cards is astronomical. Secondly, most companies that produce telecom hardware are of the opinion that transcoding (compression) should be done via DSP's, which inflates the cost of the card significantly. Thirdly, most telecom hardware vendors would not consider allowing their drivers into the public domain if such development were to happen. I've talked to some parties (you know who you are) who have expressed some interest in building this type of interface, but a situation where I can actually put my hands on equipment is far better than speculative interest by those who have not even decided to go forward with design, no matter how interesting the end product sounds on the whiteboard. However, regardless of all these negatives, I'm interested in any vendors anyone can offer as a starting point. Please, don't pester me with comments like "Why do you need 28 PRI's?" or "You'll never use that much capacity." Assume that I actually DO have that volume of traffic, and assume there are several dozen other people on this list (lurkers and active people) who have the same requirements, and assume there are hundreds more people out there who have the requirement but haven't considered Asterisk because DS3 isn't an option. I think this is a worthwhile thing to investigate. Does anyone here have experience with higher order cards under Linux? Which ones work well, and have solid drivers? Although the driver would (probably) need to be heavily modified if it is currently a data, rather than telephony, oriented driver, a good existing driver should save a lot of work. A DS3 is well within a PCI channel's capacity (the sum of the two directions is less than a 100mb Ethernet, although the DS3 is continuous), but it is quite a lot of data. A suitable card would need an efficient interface if this is to work. For the Zaptel environment that would mean that it can burst data in 1ms (8 sample chunks), and would need to bus master the data into memory in a form that doesn't require masses of manipulation by software - e.g. reshuffling out of sequence data. Doing that for so many channels might create interesting latency challenges :-) Still, if you don't try, you can't start to address these issues, and work out a solution. It shouldn't be impractical to make a DS3 to TDMoE solution, provided the DS3 hardware is right, and the PC has no quirky throughput issues. This subject often comes up on the IRC channel. There seem to be a number of people interested in higher order links, but it really needs some positive action somewhere to kick off a real project. Regards, Steve ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 06:25:16PM -0500, William Waites wrote: > > btw, jason thorpe at nasa has benchmarked gige cards on netbsd/i386 > doing well in excess of 500Mbps so it /is/ possible. > Just another data point: We also made measurements in November 2000 from a Pentium III running Linux with a Gbit interface at SLAC, via an OC12 (622Mbps) link provided by the experimental NTON network from SLAC to Caltech to another Pentium III host. Over this link we achieved about 500Mbits/s with a single stream and a window size of about 800KBytes or more. The results are shown to the right. http://www-iepm.slac.stanford.edu/monitoring/bulk/caltech.html Note that they are doing the tests with TCP which needs window size tuning at these speeds. That wouldn't be an issue for IAX2 or TDMoE... -- /~\ The ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 03:31:06PM -0800, David Boreham wrote: > There are DS3 (and OC-3) PCI cards available > with Linux drivers (for data). Might be worthwhile > contacting a vendor of those things to see if there's > a way to suck the TDM voice data > off a channelized DS3. I know of OC3 ATM cards for linux, but AFAIK few telcos want to do VoATM these days, do you know of an OC3 SONET card? I can't find one even for POS... -w -- /~\ The ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
There are DS3 (and OC-3) PCI cards available with Linux drivers (for data). Might be worthwhile contacting a vendor of those things to see if there's a way to suck the TDM voice data off a channelized DS3. ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 04:58:03PM -0600, Steven Critchfield wrote: > > > > a standard 32 bit 33MHz PCI bus has a maximum bandwidth of > > 133MBps == 1Gbps. a DS3 is 45Mbps. even if you pass the data > > over the bus 10 times, you're still only using up half the > > peak bandwidth. > > Thats only if you could get full theoretical speeds. I have friends who > work on ranked supercomputers that will tell you how far short most > chipsets fall of the theoretical. Oh, granted. I would only do this on a reasonably high end PC with a good chipset. > Also remember the DS3 speed you > mention is a one way speed. Voice being bidirectional means that it > would pass the PCI bus in and some going out. Then if you plan on doing > any recording, there will be another crossing of the PCI bus to either > go out the ethernet cable to a drive subsystem that could handle the > speed, or to a decent SCSI system locally. I wouldn't suggest doing that! I would do something like: | cluster of asterisks OC3/DS3 <---> * <---> TDMoE <---> | for recording, vm, | voip gateway, etc. and keep the config on the DS3-TDMoE box as simple as possible. ideally the DS3 interface is plugged into a 64bit 66MHz bus as well. btw, jason thorpe at nasa has benchmarked gige cards on netbsd/i386 doing well in excess of 500Mbps so it /is/ possible. -w -- /~\ The ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Lucent TNT box price is attractive, but based on real experience it is not very VOIP friendly. You have to consider it. It is hard to interconnect with Cisco for example. I have no idea about Max TNT-Asterisk interconnection. We are using Nextone softswitch and able to serve clients and interconnect via Cisco's to Max TNT only via NExtone, but direct interconnect Cisco-MaxTNT almost impossible. However, if you are using TNT's on both terminating/originating ends, then it is extremely great solution. Regards, Alexander -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ernest W. Lessenger Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 5:51 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? At 02:34 PM 12/4/2003, you wrote: >However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is it >really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically >priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a >DS3? Eight quad-span T-1 cards from Digium: $8,970 Three reasonable-quality asterisk servers: $1,000 One T-1/DS-3 MUX: $5000 Total system cost: $14,970 That actually sounds quite reasonable to me. However, if I were doing this myself I would look hard at getting a MAX TNT with VoIP capability off eBay. The price would be equivalent or less, the interface would be more complicated, but all the DSP would be done by the MAX. --Ernest ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
RE: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
I would be seriously wary of putting a DS3's worth of voice traffic on a TNT. I don't believe they are rated to handle that much voice. The APX1000 would be a much better platform, but I don't know if you can find one used. Stephen > -Original Message- > From: Ernest W. Lessenger [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:51 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? > > At 02:34 PM 12/4/2003, you wrote: > >However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is > it > >really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically > >priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a > >DS3? > > Eight quad-span T-1 cards from Digium: $8,970 > Three reasonable-quality asterisk servers: $1,000 > One T-1/DS-3 MUX: $5000 > > Total system cost: $14,970 > > That actually sounds quite reasonable to me. However, if I were doing this > myself I would look hard at getting a MAX TNT with VoIP capability off > eBay. The price would be equivalent or less, the interface would be more > complicated, but all the DSP would be done by the MAX. > > --Ernest > > > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
I am uncertain of PCI bus speed limits - too many conflicting reports are wedged into my head. However, the intent here is to dump calls out via VoIP and not simply switch between channels elsewhere on the DS3, so overcoming that limitation needs to be addressed (if it exists at all, as a follow-up post has countered) or some other non-PCI solution created. Ideally, I'd like to see TDM on DS3 in, IAX2 on ethernet out after some minimal call control through a context. To Steven's comments: Yes, I have considered multiple Asterisk devices and I am very aware of de-muxing DS3's into individual T1's or PRI's (which bring it's own set of problems, since there is no multi-PRI D-channel support in * at the moment) but the primary concern is that space, power, and heat are at a premium in the circumstances under which I am speculating. 10u is much more than 2u. I'll note that expensive solutions at this density already exist from several vendors, and are better than Asterisk right now at handling these types of call volumes and media translations. However, I pose the question to the list to note that there _is_ an interest at these sizes, and that for Asterisk to step to the next level (no longer just a PBX) that type of support is desired. One step at a time :-) JT I don't want to criticize your idea, but you do have to consider certain points. Starting from (as has already been mentioned) the bandwidth of DS3 is far too much to reasonably shove down the PCI bus without data loss / excessive overheads. Thus a sensible approach would be one where the card performs the switching, (H100/H110 or otherwise), leaving the Asterisk unit to maybe handle signalling and call control only. You could go one further, and if you require 'voice' resource, to switch that onto the PCI bus as well for processing. The way I see this, the best implementation plan would actually be to take a standard DS3 card with a H110/H100 bus, and then look for a third party card which could switch timeslots on the H110/H100 bus to the PCI bus. This composite approach would allow a zero latency switching path, but still include the flexibility of Asterisk. However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is it really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a DS3? Linus - Original Message - From: "John Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 8:06 PM Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible with Zap channels. (or are there?) Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. I think there are quite a few discouraging comments to be made on > that question. Firstly, most companies that produce telecom hardware > have silly overhead, and thus the price of their cards is > astronomical. Secondly, most companies that produce telecom hardware are of the opinion that transcoding (compression) should be done via DSP's, which inflates the cost of the card significantly. Thirdly, most telecom hardware vendors would not consider allowing their drivers into the public domain if such development were to happen. I've talked to some parties (you know who you are) who have expressed some interest in building this type of interface, but a situation where I can actually put my hands on equipment is far better than speculative interest by those who have not even decided to go forward with design, no matter how interesting the end product sounds on the whiteboard. However, regardless of all these negatives, I'm interested in any vendors anyone can offer as a starting point. Please, don't pester me with comments like "Why do you need 28 > PRI's?" or "You'll never use that much capacity." Assume that I > actually DO have that volume of traffic, and assume there are several > dozen other people on this list (lurkers and active people) who have > the same requirements, and assume there are hundreds more people out there who have the requirement but haven't considered Asterisk because DS3 isn't an option. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
> On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 10:34:02PM -, Linus Surguy wrote: > > I don't want to criticize your idea, but you do have to consider certain > > points. Starting from (as has already been mentioned) the bandwidth of DS3 > > is far too much to reasonably shove down the PCI bus without data loss / > > excessive overheads. > > ??? > > a standard 32 bit 33MHz PCI bus has a maximum bandwidth of > 133MBps == 1Gbps. a DS3 is 45Mbps. even if you pass the data > over the bus 10 times, you're still only using up half the > peak bandwidth. > According to his logic, my 100mbit network card shouldn't be working to capacity :) ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 16:52, William Waites wrote: > On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 10:34:02PM -, Linus Surguy wrote: > > I don't want to criticize your idea, but you do have to consider certain > > points. Starting from (as has already been mentioned) the bandwidth of DS3 > > is far too much to reasonably shove down the PCI bus without data loss / > > excessive overheads. > > ??? > > a standard 32 bit 33MHz PCI bus has a maximum bandwidth of > 133MBps == 1Gbps. a DS3 is 45Mbps. even if you pass the data > over the bus 10 times, you're still only using up half the > peak bandwidth. Thats only if you could get full theoretical speeds. I have friends who work on ranked supercomputers that will tell you how far short most chipsets fall of the theoretical. Also remember the DS3 speed you mention is a one way speed. Voice being bidirectional means that it would pass the PCI bus in and some going out. Then if you plan on doing any recording, there will be another crossing of the PCI bus to either go out the ethernet cable to a drive subsystem that could handle the speed, or to a decent SCSI system locally. -- Steven Critchfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Correcting an idiot-math error (24/4 != 8 and 1000*3 != 1000) ... At 02:34 PM 12/4/2003, you wrote: However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is it really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a DS3? Six quad-span T-1 cards from Digium: $8,970 Three reasonable-quality asterisk servers: $3,000 One T-1/DS-3 MUX: $5000 Total system cost: $16,970 That actually sounds quite reasonable to me. However, if I were doing this myself I would look hard at getting a MAX TNT with VoIP capability off eBay. The price would be equivalent or less, the interface would be more complicated, but all the DSP would be done by the MAX. --Ernest ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
At 02:34 PM 12/4/2003, you wrote: However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is it really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a DS3? Eight quad-span T-1 cards from Digium: $8,970 Three reasonable-quality asterisk servers: $1,000 One T-1/DS-3 MUX: $5000 Total system cost: $14,970 That actually sounds quite reasonable to me. However, if I were doing this myself I would look hard at getting a MAX TNT with VoIP capability off eBay. The price would be equivalent or less, the interface would be more complicated, but all the DSP would be done by the MAX. --Ernest ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 10:34:02PM -, Linus Surguy wrote: > I don't want to criticize your idea, but you do have to consider certain > points. Starting from (as has already been mentioned) the bandwidth of DS3 > is far too much to reasonably shove down the PCI bus without data loss / > excessive overheads. ??? a standard 32 bit 33MHz PCI bus has a maximum bandwidth of 133MBps == 1Gbps. a DS3 is 45Mbps. even if you pass the data over the bus 10 times, you're still only using up half the peak bandwidth. -w -- /~\ The ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, Dec 04, 2003 at 02:43:40PM -0600, Eric Wieling wrote: > I believe there are boxes that will take a DS-3 from the Telco and spit > out T-1's to your telecom equipment. Not sure what they are called. you're thinking of something like the nortel access node express... doing it this way will also spread the load over multiple asterisk boxes which may or may not be a good thing depending on the requirements... fwiw, you could also take the telco circuit as a SONET OC3 which, assuming proper engineering, would put you as part of a sonet ring and give added redundancy. often the telcos will run an OC3 to the basement anyways and just peel off a DS3 for you... depending on the facilities... to add to john's question, what about the possibility of ATM or TDM OC3 cards for asterisk? at that point you could probably *build* an access-node-alike out of asterisk... -w -- /~\ The ASCII Ribbon Campaign \ /No HTML/RTF in email X No Word docs in email / \ Respect for open standards ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
I don't want to criticize your idea, but you do have to consider certain points. Starting from (as has already been mentioned) the bandwidth of DS3 is far too much to reasonably shove down the PCI bus without data loss / excessive overheads. Thus a sensible approach would be one where the card performs the switching, (H100/H110 or otherwise), leaving the Asterisk unit to maybe handle signalling and call control only. You could go one further, and if you require 'voice' resource, to switch that onto the PCI bus as well for processing. The way I see this, the best implementation plan would actually be to take a standard DS3 card with a H110/H100 bus, and then look for a third party card which could switch timeslots on the H110/H100 bus to the PCI bus. This composite approach would allow a zero latency switching path, but still include the flexibility of Asterisk. However, considering the traffic volumes that you are talking about, is it really true to say that the traditional telco cards are astronomically priced, given the amount of revenue that can be generated per month on a DS3? Linus - Original Message - From: "John Todd" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 8:06 PM Subject: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards? > > Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible > with Zap channels. (or are there?) > > Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be > used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such > a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. > > I think there are quite a few discouraging comments to be made on > that question. Firstly, most companies that produce telecom hardware > have silly overhead, and thus the price of their cards is > astronomical. Secondly, most companies that produce telecom hardware > are of the opinion that transcoding (compression) should be done via > DSP's, which inflates the cost of the card significantly. Thirdly, > most telecom hardware vendors would not consider allowing their > drivers into the public domain if such development were to happen. > I've talked to some parties (you know who you are) who have expressed > some interest in building this type of interface, but a situation > where I can actually put my hands on equipment is far better than > speculative interest by those who have not even decided to go forward > with design, no matter how interesting the end product sounds on the > whiteboard. > > However, regardless of all these negatives, I'm interested in any > vendors anyone can offer as a starting point. > > Please, don't pester me with comments like "Why do you need 28 > PRI's?" or "You'll never use that much capacity." Assume that I > actually DO have that volume of traffic, and assume there are several > dozen other people on this list (lurkers and active people) who have > the same requirements, and assume there are hundreds more people out > there who have the requirement but haven't considered Asterisk > because DS3 isn't an option. > > JT > ___ > Asterisk-Users mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users > ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
On Thu, 2003-12-04 at 14:06, John Todd wrote: > Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible > with Zap channels. (or are there?) > > Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be > used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such > a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. Your first problem will be bus speeds. A single DS3 is 44.736Mbps. each way. So if you double this and get the 89.472Mbps, you are going to be coming close to the real limits of the 32/33mhz PCI bus without having done any work on the data you are shuffling. So while it could be done here, I'd start worrying about stability. Sure you could switch up to faster PCI buses like the 64/66mhz bus, but then you will start limiting what systems you can use. Then again, if you are putting that many channels through a single machine, there wasn't many choices for the hardware to begin with. My question I guess would come down to why bring a DS3 into a PC when you could get a multiplexer that took your DS3 and split it down to T1s so you could use already developed hardware. You could then build in some redundancy and if a machine goes down and takes a few T1s down with it, you just route around it till you fix it. Figure you could go 7 1U super micros with a TE410P in each one will get you your 28 T1s. Then either make one machine do the work of traffic cop and connect calls between T1s or point them down the line to other machines that can then terminate the call. Since the traffic cop machine wouldn't need to actually service calls but for a short period during routing, if it were to fail it would just drop any calls it was in the middle of routing and wouldn't route new calls. In this case you could have a hot spare waiting in the wings to do a on fail dial here type route and it could service the new calls. In this case you have 9u of space used and no machine can take down more than 4 T1s worth of calls. Ohh, you need to add 1u of space fore the multiplexer. So 10u of space for a DS3 using currently available technology and software with a bit of failover support. -- Steven Critchfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
I believe there are boxes that will take a DS-3 from the Telco and spit out T-1's to your telecom equipment. Not sure what they are called. John Todd wrote: Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible with Zap channels. (or are there?) Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. I think there are quite a few discouraging comments to be made on that question. Firstly, most companies that produce telecom hardware have silly overhead, and thus the price of their cards is astronomical. Secondly, most companies that produce telecom hardware are of the opinion that transcoding (compression) should be done via DSP's, which inflates the cost of the card significantly. Thirdly, most telecom hardware vendors would not consider allowing their drivers into the public domain if such development were to happen. I've talked to some parties (you know who you are) who have expressed some interest in building this type of interface, but a situation where I can actually put my hands on equipment is far better than speculative interest by those who have not even decided to go forward with design, no matter how interesting the end product sounds on the whiteboard. However, regardless of all these negatives, I'm interested in any vendors anyone can offer as a starting point. Please, don't pester me with comments like "Why do you need 28 PRI's?" or "You'll never use that much capacity." Assume that I actually DO have that volume of traffic, and assume there are several dozen other people on this list (lurkers and active people) who have the same requirements, and assume there are hundreds more people out there who have the requirement but haven't considered Asterisk because DS3 isn't an option. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
[Asterisk-Users] Port density: DS3 cards?
Obviously, there are no DS3 TDM cards that are currently compatible with Zap channels. (or are there?) Does anyone know of an inexpensive DS3 card that could perhaps be used with Asterisk if one were to try to port the Zap drivers to such a card? PCI, of course, would be the bus of choice. I think there are quite a few discouraging comments to be made on that question. Firstly, most companies that produce telecom hardware have silly overhead, and thus the price of their cards is astronomical. Secondly, most companies that produce telecom hardware are of the opinion that transcoding (compression) should be done via DSP's, which inflates the cost of the card significantly. Thirdly, most telecom hardware vendors would not consider allowing their drivers into the public domain if such development were to happen. I've talked to some parties (you know who you are) who have expressed some interest in building this type of interface, but a situation where I can actually put my hands on equipment is far better than speculative interest by those who have not even decided to go forward with design, no matter how interesting the end product sounds on the whiteboard. However, regardless of all these negatives, I'm interested in any vendors anyone can offer as a starting point. Please, don't pester me with comments like "Why do you need 28 PRI's?" or "You'll never use that much capacity." Assume that I actually DO have that volume of traffic, and assume there are several dozen other people on this list (lurkers and active people) who have the same requirements, and assume there are hundreds more people out there who have the requirement but haven't considered Asterisk because DS3 isn't an option. JT ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
