[Asterisk-Users] Asterisk BRI in the USA

[Walt Reed]

On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 11:16:10PM -1000, Mark Coccimiglio said:
> I'm seeing Diva Server V-BRI running close to $1K/card.  There are other 
> Diva cards running around $700.  A little pricy but not impossible to 
> do.  I remember back in the 90's I had ISDN into my home for internet 
> access.  The netgear router I used cost me about $350 back then, and it 
> worked great.  I still have it as a matter of fact.  However internet 
> access is not what I need.  I'm still waiting for the ILEC 
> (HawaiianTelcom) to get back to me to find out if it is even possible to 
> do BRI into my office.  The nearest ISDN capable CO is located a bit of 
> a distance from my office (actually its closer to my home).  The local 
> CO dosen't have BRI capablities.  From what I'm hearing when you bundle 
> together all the costs BRI & PRI are gonna be  close in price (from a 
> H/W point of view.)  Maybe I should just look into going the PRI route 
> and try to find some people willing to buy on my extra DiD's?  Any one 
> what a phone number in Hawaii? :)  Its such a shame I can't leave well 
> enough alone and suck it up on POTS (eck).  I'll keep you informed as to 
> my progress (or lack there of).
 
>From my research, the problem with PRI's is that you generally pay a lot
for the circuit - especially if you only need 8 channels or so.
While you can go ahead and get a full PRI for not much more than a
partial PRI, the cost of the taxes on the unused channels kills the
budget when you look at a 2 year cost. 

I found a telcom broker in San Francisco that works with all the top
providers, and while a lot of the competitors to the ILEC's had lower
up-front prices, they got you by not including the costs of the taxes
and had other fees too that killed the savings. This was especially true
for less than 2 year commitments.

Telco's hate BRI's because it takes more cable pairs and repeater
hardware when you need more than one. In some cases they end up putting
in a T1 / micro DLC. You also can't do DSL over an ISDN BRI line.

BTW, a little birdie told me that Sangoma is working on a BRI card.
Yeah!