[Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP

[Colin Anderson]

There is much controversy about this. It is *possible* to do more than 1
card but sometimes it is not practical. Some issues:

-You may have an unresolvable interrupt conflict which Would Be Bad when you
put in multiple cards
-The performance of the cards will become degraded because of the massive
amounts of interrupts generated. Using zttest in /usr/src/zaptel can give
you a metric on this. If it drops below ~99.98% you will have a problem.
-The TDMXXX series of cards requires a power connector from the PC's power
supply to generate ring voltage. You may not have a spare one. So you use a
splitter. Then you stick in another card. So you use another splitter, and
so on and so on until you have this Gordian knot of splitters, and if one
fails or becomes intermittent, they all do. Not an optimum solution. 

The reason the O Reilly book says to not do that is because of the issues
above.

However, it is possible and it does work. I have done it myself (although
only 2 cards) but I was very careful about interrupts, I had spare power
plugs, etc. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Philip Edelbrock [mailto:phil at netroedge.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 11, 2006 3:57 PM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] FXS or VOIP



Jim Freeze wrote:
[...]

 > So for 5 phones, I would need 2 cards. And, the O'Reilly book says that
 > I should not put 2 cards in the same box, so I would need another 
computer.
 > [...]


Whoa, I'm confused.  Can't you use as many cards as you have slots? 
We've got just one 4-port card, but I've always assumed it was just a 
matter of purchasing and installing more to get 8 or 12 lines?


Phil
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