[PLUG] Asterisk hardware question

[Aaron Burt]

On Fri, Jun 02, 2006 at 01:10:35PM -0700, Kurt Sussman wrote:
> Aaron Burt (aaron at bavariati.org) typed this ...
> > And other ATAs are even cheaper than the Sipura, especially if you don't
> > need WAN-passthrough and suchlike.  Atcom and some others offer ATAs
> > with 4 FxS ports, or even a mix of FxO and FxS ports, with failover.
>
> Atcom doesn't seem to be as easy to find as the Sipura ATAs; froogle
> finds 33 matches for atcom (including about 8 that are really a book on
> dive travel locations!) where 'sipura spa-3000', a far more restrictive
> search, finds 26 completely relevant listings.
> 
> Is this a brand that you prefer? Where do you buy them?

Naw, it's just an inexpensive Chinese OEM-style critter that's useful if
you plan to sell lots or need something other than a 2-FxS ATA.

> > > Considering voice quality only, is the Digium card worth the extra
> > > bucks?
> > 
> > It's just as crappy as any other phone-line interface in my experience,
> > without the flexibility and reusability of a separate ATA.
> 
> Hmm. How do they get so much money for those cards, then? Maybe I should
> buy a x100p clone and a couple of FXS-only ATAs?

Digiums are low-volume and cheezy, but cheaper than Dialogic and they're
useful if you want it all integrated into one box.

> Yes, I need to handle faxes. My office is small, and I do some small but
> critical amount of faxing. For incoming faxes it looks like Asterisk can
> be configured to receive the doc, convert it to PDF and email it. That's
> very cool. But for the outgoing faxes, I guess I'll need a way to get
> those out. Unless I buy a scanner and plan to email PDFs...

You can assemble a system that way, but the fact is that a plain ol'
landline-connected FAX machine does the job, works even if the system's
down, and makes instant sense to anyone else who tries to use it.  One
of those Multifunction Peripherals covers it and gives you scanning and
color printing, too.

Also, FAX over VoIP is touch-and-go and isn't likely to improve much.

> All I need (as far as I know now) is thousands of extensions (VMboxes)
> with PIN protection, and maybe over-the-phone provisioning. All
> connections can be via SIP, so no analog interfaces will be required. I
> think a box in a colo cabinet would do the job, with a big RAID for
> storage.

Ya just gonna rent a termination number and pay by the minute?  Not a
bad way to do it, and you can rent terminations in other LATAs too, and
even a toll-free number.

> Thanks. This is useful.

Glad to hear it.