[Asterisk-Users] Qs about FXO/FXS cards

[Steven Critchfield]

On Mon, 2005-01-03 at 15:25 -0500, Andrew Kohlsmith wrote:
> On January 3, 2005 03:07 pm, Steven Critchfield wrote:
> > And we come full circle to a comment I made before that TDM cards are
> > more for hobbyist than for real serious installs. A real install is
> > probably going to use a T1/E1 interface and bypasses all the troubles
> > listed in this thread.
> 
> Unfortunately that makes Asterisk installs for small businesses more expensive 
> than necessary.  At US$500 for a T100P and US$300ish for a channel bank (FXS 
> only, FXO is significantly more expensive!) plus your time and system for an 
> Asterisk install it raises the bar for the small business to adopt Asterisk.  
> The TDM400P would fit a very nice little niche if it worked reliably.
> 
> Let's face it -- most businesses are looking at VOIP to reduce their telephone 
> bills and if the time it takes for the install to pay for itself is raised 
> significantly (like an added $1000 price tag for reliable equipment)... 
> well... the writing on the wall is pretty clear.

And those are the ones I see being serviced by people like nufone and
others who will put a machine in a colo facility and get really cheap
PSTN connections for you and then you don't have but 1 analog port at
most to bother with locally. 

Any small business that is going to balk at a good system is going to
balk at ever spending any money and may be a good candidate to go the
legacy route and learn what a good raping really feels like. If they
don't want to spend money on the infrastructure, you will find that they
probably are too marginal to stay in business very long.

As a contractor, those would probably be the accounts you will regret in
the long run anyways. A company willing to come off of the money to do
something right is the ones who you will make a nice profit margin off
of and not have to haggle over price when repairs are needed. 
-- 
Steven Critchfield <critch at basesys.com>