[Asterisk-Users] Intel Modem vs Digium Cards

[Adam Goryachev]

> Wow, that's a really sucky attitude.  I would expect *Digium* to tell him
> to go away and solve his own problems.  However, if the user community does
> that, then this is one of the suckiest user communities I've run across in 
> the free software world, and I've been doing free software for many years.

Well, IMHO, I would expect it perfectly reasonable for one of three
responses from the 'user' community (in order of likelihood):

1) A resounding non-response
2) A response of "Well, get a X101P or TDMx0P and try it
3) Some advice on how to resolve the problem.

Reasoning:
Most people don't use non digium hardware, so they have no experience
with the intricacies that might go wrong for you, whether it is a
hardware problem, driver incompatibility, or whatever, we don't know the
hardware, we don't trust the reliability of the solution, etc... This is
why you would most likely get one of the first two responses.

Sure, there are some people who have used the hardware on this list,
there are some people who haven't but will attempt to help anyway by
presuming that your hardware/driver is all fine, etc...There may even be
some people who know enough to tell you that the hardware you have won't
work, or that you need to apply some obscure patch...

Finally, when you are advising a NEW user, to add additional
complications/limitations as the above, you are asking for trouble.
Sure, some people could express their opinions
better/differently/whatever, but at the end of the day, you have a few
potential outcomes:

The user buys a generic modem
a) can't get asterisk to work after some days/weeks, and gives up, tells
everyone that asterisk is crap, immature, and doesn't work

b) gets asterisk to work, but has major stability problems, or even just
minor annoying hangups/echo/whatever and so they drop it and tell people
that it's crap

c) gets asterisk to work, and everything runs really smoothly. They tell
everyone asterisk is great, and there is no need to buy the $100 card,
then we propogate all of the above chances for failure.... 

> As for me?  I'm shopping for cheap modem cards.  Why?
> 
> 1) I'm on FreeBSD, so Digium probably won't support that.

(I'm not saying freebsd is bad/better/worse/whatever).
So, you are limiting the number of people who can assist you to those
who have used FreeBSD, and then again to only those who have used a
generic modem.....

BTW, I though digium was actually putting a reasonable amount of effort
into getting asterisk + drivers to work on FreeBSD, and have seen a
number of people claiming success.

> 2) I realistically expect to go all VoIP, except perhaps for fax, so I don't
>    want to spend a ton on cards that I won't need.

If you need them, buy them, if you don't, don't. I don't see why you
would buy something that you 'might' need, regardless of the price??

> 4) I don't really think my PPro200 PBX box will survive very well with
>    having to handle the codec work anyways.

There are other people that have had success with that sort of machine,
depending on the number of channels/codec conversions etc...

> But I'm open to spending ten bucks to explore this method. 
> 
> If I was buying a Digium card and it didn't pan out, I'd probably want to
> see if I could return it, and then there's all the annoyance of an RMA, and
> time frames after which you can't return it, etc.  This way, I'm out a
> whopping $10.90, and I can deal with that.

Well, I would expect that you wouldn't need to RMA it, digium seem
pretty good at supporting their products... but, I don't want to spoil
your fun, get the cheap modem, worst case is you will either buy the
X101P, or will go away and tell people how bad asterisk is....

> Oh.  That's over at ChiefValue.com.  Encore 56K V.92 Internal PCI Fax Modem,
> Model ENF656-ESW-INPR - Retail.  $5.90 plus $5.00 shipping.

I wish you luck, I know nothing about these generic modems, but it
doesn't look like that even comes close to mentioning the right
indicators to show that it would work.... but, like I said, I don't
know.

> Share the knowledge.  It's not bad for Digium.  The guy who wants to get
> into this telephony stuff for a cheap price, or just wants to see if it
> will work, he's going to be attracted by the ten dollar deal.  Let him do
> that and then preach the glories of Asterisk.

Or preach how crap asterisk is....

> Remember this:  Digium can't grow (much) unless the community grows.  So
> help it grow.

By advocating sustainable growth methods... ie, promoting known good
hardware, which can be easily supported. Better options that the X101P
clones exist, such as the various ATA devices, or for ISDN there are
even more options. Look on the wiki for more, there is a lot of
information available there.

Just my 0.02c worth.

PS, for those people who feel like sending a message to the list saying
"Don't use clone x101Ps, or whatever, please don't. The best response
you can send is a non-reply. Those people who want to support that user,
will, the rest of us should just keep quite. The same as you would keep
quite if you know nothing about a sipura and you see a post about some
wierd problem someone is having with their new sipura.

PPS, thanks for reading my drivel :)

Adam