[Asterisk-Users] Channel Banks

[Andrew Kohlsmith]

>   My buddy and I have been working on this asterisk server for a little
> while now and we both have one running at our houses. We are looking into
> ways to expand out to bigger servers and have hit a point of contention
> between us. We are looking for a way to put 12 FXO and 24 FXS onto an
> asterisk server. I feel we need to use PCI cards in the box and my friend
> says a channel bank will do the trick. I see how the pci cards talk to
> asterisk obviously but how does the signaling work on a channel bank is it
> Ethernet or do you still bring it into an fxo or T1 card on the server?
> Feel free to laugh but I can not get my head around how the channel bank
> works in this picture.

A channel bank takes a T1 and converts it to FXS or FXO interfaces.  It 
"talks" channelized T1 -- you'll need a T100P (single T1) or TE405P (quad T1) 
-- the cards aren't cheap but they work very well -- better than a TDM400P or 
X101P, IMO.

Either card just presents Asterisk with Zap channels (24 or 96) -- they're 
easy to use and work well.  I recommend the Adit600 for FXS or FXO, or the 
(significantly) cheaper Access Bank I or II for FXS only (it doesn't seem to 
be capable of doing remote-party disconnect with its FXO interfaces).

Ebay's a good source.

Regards,
Andrew