[Asterisk-Dev] OT possible idea for alternative uses of Digium T1 Hardware

[Chad Wicker]

Please comment.

Over the weekend I was thinking about my job and what I do for a
living.  I am in the middle of trying to set up my 4 port T1 card  for
use in integrating an Asterisk implementation to switch calls via E&M
wink T1 to our EMX2500 switch.  This implementation should be simple and
usefull in dropping a DID down to one timeslot on a T1 (an extension)
but I digress.  In the middle of the setup my favorite T1 Testset
(Sunrise T10) died on me.  I was distraught and called them up.  Am in
the proccess of getting it fixed, but it lead me to some interesting
ideas.  A quick search on google didn't bring anything up on any open
Source test set types of applications.  

so...

Has anyone though of using zaptel hardware to build a testset
application.  Sending patterns could be as easy as getting a sample of
the various test patterns and sending them to the T1.  Proccessing the
results would be more harry but I doubt that this would be too taxing. 
I envision one of those Hand portable computer enclosures with a
ram-disk instead of a harddrive, and making a protable network test set.
 Voice channel access could utilize some code from the asterisk project.
 A Web based front end would be nice as a network test set, but a
application based would probably be a good first attempt.  I think that
this could be used to make one kick butt system and further spur digium
hardware sales, but I am unqualified to do the programming.  

Desireable features could be easily grabbed from the slick sheets of
existing hardware test sets and additional features could be added in
similar to asterisk.  One such feature that would be nice would be to be
able to record off the buss the voice being used. This could be
interesting as a pass though call recorder, triggered by the signal
states.  Such recordings are also usefull in explaining problems to
vendors ( a little more accurate a description that there is a funny
popping sound when I whistle into the phone).

I intend this e-mail to spur conversations as to the possibility of
this concept, and hopefully starting off something wonderfull.  It would
enrich digium sales (always a good goal) and also provide non-buisiness
class users access to the testing equipment that usually costs major
$$$.  I also think that this would add value to asterisk implementations
in that the same hardware a Asterisk is built out of could be used to
test the circuits coming into it.  If someone thinks this e-mail is
appropriate for other lists of discussion or the wiki feel free to
include it.

Chad C. Wicker
Systems Engineer
Petrocom