[Asterisk-Users] T3 Mux and Asterisk Question

[BJ Weschke]

On 1/22/06, Steve Totaro <stotaro at totarotechnologies.com> wrote:
> I have a T3 coming from my carrier.  From there I want to use an Adtran
> mx2800 T1 Mux to break the T3 into 28 T1/PRI which feed into seven quad
> T1/PRI equipped servers.
>
> Everything seems very straight forward with the exception of the D
> channels for the T1/PRI.
>
> I am not very familiar with large circuits such as T3s.  I know that I
> can use one D channel per set of quad port on each server.  So if each
> server has a quad port card, I can use one channel as the D channel for
> all four spans.
>
> That gives me seven D channels in my setup.  Does anyone know how the
> Mux handles these D channels onto the T3?  My guess is the Mux is simple
> going to send all of the channels onto the T3 without modifying
> anything.
>
> What I would really like to do is have one D channel coming in on the T3
> and have it split between each of the T1/PRI or even better one D
> channel per quad (I know Asterisk can do that).
>
> Is it possible?  If the Adtran mx2800 cannot do it, is there anther
> product that can.  I have looked at the RAD Optimux T3 product but have
> had great experience with Adtran products.  The price is the same but
> the Adtran allows for two controller cards so it seems to have more
> built in redundancy.
>

 I haven't any experience with the Adtran mux product line, but have
done a good amount of work with Carrier Access Corp muxes. With most
DS3 muxes, all they are doing is muxing down a DS3 into DS1's. So, you
could be running E&M or PRI through the muxes and you really don't
change anything on your mux because that's the application running
within the loop. The mux doesn't care about that.

 You're not going to be able to have one D channel for the entire mux
- well - you could - but then you'd need a machine that accepted
signaling for the entire trunk group and that's going to be somewhat
difficult with Asterisk and most intel server machines at this point.

 Just keep in mind when you group all of your DS1s on a quad port card
into one D channel, if you lose the loop that's within that D channel,
you've now lost signaling for all 4 of the DS1s in the group. This may
or may not be a problem for you. If you've got a CLEC that's
delivering that DS3 loop to your location by means of LEC leased
access, you shouldn't assume that your DS3 stays a DS3 through from pt
A to pt B. There were more than a couple times I had seen DS1's fail
inside of DS3's at a prior job and it turned out to be something with
a LEC's DACs or something else.

--
Bird's The Word Technologies, Inc.
http://www.btwtech.com/