[Fwd: Re: [Asterisk-Users] Adit 600 channel bank in UK setting]

[Peter Hoppe]

Jon,

I actually had some more discussions with Tim on this issue, and it seems that the channel bank 
would still be a good option to choose for internal purposes. I would not see any other solution 
than a channel bank to connect many 2wire phones into one asterisk box. I had a talk today with 
Carrier Access, and it seems that the adit would do us fine. The fxs cards of the adit 600 are 
actually reprogrammable for uk phones (dip switches). We have requested a test platform from CAC 
which I hope would arrive here shortly, and we would test how the fxs ports work with different uk 
phones.

I would really be unhappy to scratch our existing phone cable network and to lay an entire new LAN 
and to buy many IP phones. First of all - new installations always have teething problems. Then the 
admin headache with the many IP phones. Also - the solution doesn't scale very easily. For each new 
phones we need a new network socket... or a hub. Then one mains connection per phone (with power 
supply - more fire risk). And on and on... Using 2wire phones eliminates all that - cables are there 
already, users can buy any phone they like, we can put in additional sockets without admin effort 
and so on. Really - 2wire rocks!

The pstn connectivity is an entirely different matter. The fxo cards of the adit600 seem not to be 
EU approved for public ( = pstn) connection (mainly) because of emission regulations. Also, I would 
not be sure how well the impedances of the fxo ports and the BT lines match (Echo problem, noise 
etc.). I am looking into using a voip gateway with fxo ports for our BT line connectivity. I found 
one on sale on a UK website, see

http://lists.digium.com/pipermail/asterisk-users/2004-November/075118.html

However, it looks to me more and more that for our internal phones we use the adit 600. Lets see 
what the testing will show...

Peter


> On Thursday 18 November 2004 22:16, Tim Robinson wrote:
>>
>> Channel banks are a peculiar US thing. Be careful!  You will almost
>> certainly be better off using voip handsets (SNOMs are cool, avoid
>> Grandstream for anything other than domestic environment) and a few
>> Sipura-type ATA's for the analogue fax machines etc. or some Digium
>> analogue cards.
> 
> So what would you advise using in the UK to interface with standard 2 wire 
> phones - I'm trying to avoid having to use ata type adapters.
> 
> Jon


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