The difference between Asterisk with T1/E1/PRI card and Patton/Cisco Gateway is not explained in a few lines. Below is a few points from seen from my experience. Surely others will have a different opinion.<br><ul><li>I use both solutions in several Telecoms in Norway and UK.
<br></li><li>Digiums T1/E1/PRI card normally cost much less than a dedicated Gateway.<br></li><li>Asterisk and T1/E1/PRI card can not reliable handle FAX and T.38 (This can be disputed)</li><li>Asterisk and T1/E1/PRI card can not reliable handle modem traffic over IP. (This can be disputed) Yes some people still use modems. :-)
<br></li><li>Patton and Cisco can be hard to setup and configure if you don't know it.</li><li>The Linux part of Asterisk is much harder to configure with Digiums T1/E1/PRI card than just as stand alone Asterisk.</li>
<li>Asterisk and T1/E1/PRI card can be a very reliable efax gateway providing FAX from PSTN to pdf/tiff files.</li><li>With Patton and Cisco you need a Radius server like <a href="http://www.freeradius.org/">http://www.freeradius.org/
</a> for your CDR generation.</li><li>Asterisk have excellent CDR generation tools.</li><li>Patton and Cisco is not a SIP registration server so you still need Asterisk or SER -Sip Express Router.<br></li></ul>So it depends on your setup. If you don't need Fax from ATA to PSTN you may be are better off using Asterisk only. If you need Fax you may need Patton and Cisco.
<br><br>Best Regards<br>Are Casilla<br>Astbill Development Team<br><a href="http://astbill.com">http://astbill.com</a><br>AstBill - Free Billing Routing and Management software for Asterisk and VOIP - AstBill<br><br><div>
<span class="gmail_quote">On 6/16/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ron Joffe</b> <<a href="mailto:rjoffe@yahoo.com">rjoffe@yahoo.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
Are,<br><br>I'm sort of new to this industry, and was wondering if you could provide a<br>quick explanation on the advantages of utilizing something like the SN4960<br>versus an asterisk server with a digium (or other) 4 port T1/E1/PRI card?
<br><br>Thanks,<br><br>Ron<br><br><br></blockquote></div><br>