Re: [Asterisk-Users] Hardware Compatibility and zaptel driver
Hi Nir, Let me guess - you used an EtherNet cable to connect the E1 port to the Telco's box on the wall, and it is several metres long? Although the plugs look like EtherNet plugs the cable actually has the wires paired differently. The crosstalk of just a few metres of cables incorrectly paired like this is often enough to give a gentle stream of bit errors. Cat 5 cable is OK. The EtherNet plugs are OK. They just need to be wired differently. Regards, Steve Nir Simionovich wrote: Hi All, Well, as some of you alrady saw myself and Optimus on the IRC channel, I guess you already know us. In any case, I've been battling the following issues during the past few days: 1. My Telco claims that he can see many CRC4 errors originating from my side of the PRI line. If your line dies and you can see smoke pouring from the local exchange building, the Telco will still say the problem is your fault. It seems to be a basic quality of Telcos in every country :-) Although I see that everything looks fine, I can't really see if there is a CRC4 problem. I've managed to play around with zaptel.conf, and when I set the tonezone to FR, the number of errors decreases. I think that the problem resides withing the definition in the zonedata.c file, however, I didn't find any explenation of the files syntax. I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but if anybody has a better idea, I'd love to hear it. 2. I've been asked to find some additional hardware to work with, and the only thing listed as a PRI line card on the Digium site is Dialogic. Dialogic E1 cards cost around 6000$ !!! Which about 10 times more than Digium. Has anyone got any experience with another PRI card that works with Asterisk? Apart from these 2 issues all is working fine, and we are very happy with the Asterisk. I will be sending everybody some nice figures soon, so hold on tight. Oh, just to do something funny, try performing the next trick: Configure a single PRI line with 30 channels, call the first channel which calls the second channel, which calls the third channel and so on, till you get to 30. Now, take the target phone ear piece, and bring it up to the microphone of the source number. Say something next to it, and you will hear the delay of voice on your machine :-) Results tend to be very amuzing :-) Nir S ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Hardware Compatibility and zaptel driver
Hi Steve, Hmmm lets see, NOT ! In Israel the connection of the E1 at the wall socket is not an RJ45, but a British Connector. I'm fully aware of the fact that the connection of E1 on the Router/Server side are 1,2 and 4,5 as pair for TX and RX. Steve, my question may sound a little stupid, but here is my current setup. 1. The cable connecting from the wall to the server is a flat 4 wire cable, used by our Telco. 2. The cable also has a noise filter on it, the same one used for Data Connection by our Telco. 3. The cable is around 60cm long, which means that it's just the right length. 4. The length of connections from my wall socket to the E1 Grouping device is around 30 meters, well within the specs. However, what you said poses a really interesting question. Although I'm a CCNA, I couldn't find an answer to it. As far as I know, E1 is supposed to be an un-balanced medium, which suggests that there is no significance to the order of wires within the pair. Question is, is this true? If not, this might be the cause of problems. However, the line works fine from my side, and I due to the fact that I can't see any errors on my side (actually, I don't have an ability to see errors), I'm a bit at a loss. Now, here are the symptoms according to our testing (The Telco and Myself): 1. We've managed to bring down the number of errors to around 60 per hour. This was achieved by changing the default ToneZone in zaptel.conf to FR, while before it was set to UK. That's why I believe that the problem resides zomewhere in the zonedata.c file. 2. When errors go up, I can create outgoing calls, but incoming calls receive busy signals on all PRI channels. 3. The errors seem to go away without any specific reason. The only common denominator for reseting the errors is, performing several resets to the zaptel driver and performing a reset to the Telco System 12 connection card. And only after a variable number of resets, everything works fine again. 4. It can work fine for a couple of days, and then start making hell. Well, that's basically it, if anyone has an idea, I'm open. Regards, Nir S > - Original Message - > From: "Steve Underwood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Monday, March 10, 2003 5:15 PM > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Hardware Compatibility and zaptel driver > > > > Hi Nir, > > > > Let me guess - you used an EtherNet cable to connect the E1 port to the > > Telco's box on the wall, and it is several metres long? > > > > Although the plugs look like EtherNet plugs the cable actually has the > > wires paired differently. The crosstalk of just a few metres of cables > > incorrectly paired like this is often enough to give a gentle stream of > > bit errors. Cat 5 cable is OK. The EtherNet plugs are OK. They just need > > to be wired differently. > > > > Regards, > > Steve > > > > > > Nir Simionovich wrote: > > > > > Hi All, > > > > > > Well, as some of you alrady saw myself and Optimus on the IRC > > > channel, I guess you already > > > know us. In any case, I've been battling the following issues during > > > the past few days: > > > > > > 1. My Telco claims that he can see many CRC4 errors originating from > > > my side of the PRI line. > > > > If your line dies and you can see smoke pouring from the local exchange > > building, the Telco will still say the problem is your fault. It seems > > to be a basic quality of Telcos in every country :-) > > > > > Although I see that everything looks fine, I can't really see if > > > there is a CRC4 problem. I've > > > managed to play around with zaptel.conf, and when I set the > > > tonezone to FR, the number > > > of errors decreases. I think that the problem resides withing the > > > definition in the zonedata.c > > > file, however, I didn't find any explenation of the files syntax. > > > I may be barking up the wrong tree here, but if anybody has a > > > better idea, I'd love to hear it. > > > > > > 2. I've been asked to find some additional hardware to work with, and > > > the only thing listed as a > > > PRI line card on the Digium site is Dialogic. Dialogic E1 cards > > > cost around 6000$ !!! Which > > > about 10 times more than Digium. Has anyone got any experience > > > with another PRI card that > > > works with Asterisk? > > > > > > Apart from these 2 issues all is working fine, and we are very happy > > > with the Asteri
Re: [Asterisk-Users] Hardware Compatibility and zaptel driver
Nir Simionovich wrote: Hi Steve, Hmmm lets see, NOT ! In Israel the connection of the E1 at the wall socket is not an RJ45, but a British Connector. I'm fully aware of the fact that the connection of E1 on the Router/Server side are 1,2 and 4,5 as pair for TX and RX. Steve, my question may sound a little stupid, but here is my current setup. 1. The cable connecting from the wall to the server is a flat 4 wire cable, used by our Telco. 2. The cable also has a noise filter on it, the same one used for Data Connection by our Telco. 3. The cable is around 60cm long, which means that it's just the right length. 4. The length of connections from my wall socket to the E1 Grouping device is around 30 meters, well within the specs. Maybe that 30m cable is paired incorrectly. However, what you said poses a really interesting question. Although I'm a CCNA, I couldn't find an answer to it. As far as I know, E1 is supposed to be an un-balanced medium, which suggests that there is no significance to the order of wires within the pair. Question is, is this true? If not, this might be the cause of problems. However, the line works fine from my side, and I due to the fact that I can't see any errors on my side (actually, I don't have an ability to see errors), I'm a bit at a loss. Er, unbalanced means there _is_ significance in which way round you wire things. Balanced means there is not. In the case (or cases) of E1 you can get either. If you have is supplied on TP is should be balanced. On co-ax it will be unbalanced. You have TPs, so your is balanced. However this is entirely irrelevant. E1s and T1s can both tolerate reversal of the data. Now, here are the symptoms according to our testing (The Telco and Myself): 1. We've managed to bring down the number of errors to around 60 per hour. This was achieved by changing the default ToneZone in zaptel.conf to FR, while before it was set to UK. That's why I believe that the problem resides zomewhere in the zonedata.c file. I don't think so. zonedata.c only affects the data content of the E1 stream. Your CRC4 errors mean you have bit errors in the stream itself. Changing the tone zone has probably just changed the data on the line to something more benign that is giving less trouble. 2. When errors go up, I can create outgoing calls, but incoming calls receive busy signals on all PRI channels. 3. The errors seem to go away without any specific reason. The only common denominator for reseting the errors is, performing several resets to the zaptel driver and performing a reset to the Telco System 12 connection card. And only after a variable number of resets, everything works fine again. 4. It can work fine for a couple of days, and then start making hell. Problems tend to come and go when things are marginal. It sounds like crosstalk, weak signal or some such PITA. With T1s you can get quirky problems like this with AMI vs B8ZS mismatches. E1 is always HDB3, and I can't think of any other optional things which give almost but not quite right results. Regards, Steve ___ Asterisk-Users mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
