[Asterisk-Dev] No Red Alarms for TDM400 modules

[matt.riddell at sineapps.com]

Aparrently there is no way to tell if the RJ plug is dead / uplugged 
/ eaten by weasels.

This can be a problem as follows:

Card 1 Module 1: FXO [Channel #1]
Card 1 Module 2: FXO [Channel #2]
Card 1 Module 3: FXO [Channel #3]
Card 1 Module 4: FXO [Channel #4]
Card 2 Module 1: FXO [Channel #5]
Card 2 Module 2: FXO [Channel #6]
Card 2 Module 3: FXO [Channel #7]
Card 2 Module 4: FXO [Channel #8]
Card 3 Module 1: FXO [Channel #9]
Card 3 Module 2: FXO [Channel #10]
Card 3 Module 3: FXO [Channel #11]
Card 3 Module 4: FXO [Channel #12]

relevant zapata.conf
group=1
channel=1-12

relevant extensions.conf
exten => _9.,1,Dial(Zap/g1/${EXTEN:1})

Say for example Card 1 Module 1 connection is down (ie dead/uplugged 
cable etc).  If you then try to dial a number, the call will not go 
through (even though you have 11 available lines).  If you did the 
same with a group of X100P's, the first one wouldn't be used if it 
wasn't plugged in.

Even if there was a way of promoting a Red Alarm from the module to 
the card...this would be far from ideal as it would be much more 
preferable to be able to still use the other 3 modules on the card.

I have raised and confirmed this with: Digium Tech Support, Asterisk-
users, Asterisk irc channel.

Should I file a bug report for this? Is there a simple hack I could 
do (i.e. check for dialtone before dialing...)

Actually on that one didn't someone want to receive MWI (stutter tone 
for messages) on incoming lines not long ago?

Is there a possibility that we could listen/analyse the dial tone 
before dialing?

Cristian Victor just said:
================================================
What about putting all the channels in a group (1 for example) and 
use Zap/r1/number to dial. This wil use round robin to pick a 
different channel on every dial attempt.

So if there is a dead line some calls will miss but with 12 lines 
11/12 of all calls will go through.
================================================

This will be a good quick fix for getting it working, but still 1 out 
of every 12 calls will fail.

Thoughts?

Matt Riddell