[Asterisk-Users] What hardware to use for ISDN in Romania

[Juergen K. Zick]

>The line is supposed to be standard EUROISDN; I found no mention of DSS1 on
>the technical specs page, I only found EUROISDN.

OK, it should be DSS1 then ...

>The TELCO is going to provide me with a NT equipment that has two analog
>ports and two S0 ports; Of the two S0 ports one is supposed to be used to
>connect the PBX to the NT; I've got no idea what the other ports are, I can
>only guess the two analog ports will give me access to the two voice
>channels using plain-old analog phones.

Good, then you get such an ISDN-TA already from your TELCO. Usually here in 
Germany, you just get an NT with the S0 interface and all other behind is 
your choice (incl. buying and setting up an TA ...) ... But your TELCO 
seems to avoid these user problems. The S0 ports should be in parallel. 
Normally, you can connect up to 8 devices to them but can use only 2 
channels at the same time.

>I'm asking about "risks" because I ran through the wiki's and ended up very
>confused because it seems Asterisk's support for ISDN is driver-dependent
>and drivers are obviously kind of hardware dependent.

Absolutely right ...

>The "risk" I'm talking about is signing up for a ISDN contract only to find
>I can't get the drivers going, or I can't fully use the service. Since I
>don't have access to any other ISDN installation OR ISDN hardware, all I've
>got to go on is email, google and the wiki!
>
>As a matter of fact I don't know what hardware to look for! Do I buy this
>from a telco provider or from a computer hardware shop? Am I looking for
>something listed in the "modem" category or for some other hardware? Since
>there aren't that many Asterisk consultants in Romania I don't really know
>where to ask. And yes, I did find MODULO in Bucharest (listed on the wiki as
>consultants) but they did not return my last two emails so I'm on my own :-)

Uups,  well. Then there is some risk ... Are you able to compile a new 
kernel for an ASTERISK installation, if that would be needed for a proper 
hardware support ?

The ISDN-hardware (PC-card) you can easily get at EBAY or in a PC shop. It 
should run as "PCI-ISDN card (with HFC-S chipset)".
For an easy start and good performance I personally would recommend to take 
a AVM B1 PCI (active ISDN card, allows faxing as well), get the recent 
driver sources for the helper applications from AVM and use chan_capi-cm an 
ASTERISK channel driver. At least here (even with older AVM B1 ISA cards), 
that runs without problems under 2.6.14.xx kernel and ASTERISK 1.2.x ...

But as you might have read here the last days depending on your TELCO and 
its signalization of calls (example AUSTRIA) there can problems appear 
which nobody could think of ...

Regards,

Jürgen



> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com [mailto:asterisk-users-
> > bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Juergen K. Zick
> > Sent: Saturday, March 04, 2006 11:46 AM
> > To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
> > Subject: Re: [Asterisk-Users] What hardware to use for ISDN in Romania
> >
> > HI There
> >
> > if the line is a standard EUROISDN with DSS1 protocol then it's not a risk
> > at all to take and to connect it. You get an S0 interface from your TELCO
> > and there cou can plug in any EUROISDN compliant equipment e.g. TAs,
> > phones
> > and, of course, ASTERISK ...
> >
> > I would suggest that you AT LEAST try to get an ISDN-TA  (ISDN <-->PSTN
> > converter for "old" analogue phones and fax machines) as well, for testing
> > and backup purposes. They are cheap to get e.g. for abt 2-5 EUR e.g. on
> > EBAY.
> >
> > Depending on your budgets (time and money), experiences and skills you can
> > equip your ASTERISK box with incoming and outgoing ISDN channels. You will
> > find quite a lot config examples for that, supposingly ISDN-cards with
> > HFC-S chipsets are the most versatile ... However, ISDN drivers are still
> > a
> > bit tricky, but youo have depending on your kernel version at least
> > ISDN4LINUX, vISDN, mISDN and chan_modem, chan_capi, chan_capi-cm,
> > chan_misdn as config options ...
> >
> > Anything else you shoul dbe able to find in the WiKis ...
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Jürgen
> >
> >
> >
> > >My land-line provider (Romtelecom) has a very nice offer for ISDN. All in
> > >all they offer me a digital land-line with 1 base number + 2 MSN's and
> > that
> > >would make a grate addition to my full-time home office.
> > >
> > >Romtelecom say they're providing EURO-ISDN and the line is compatible
> > with
> > >any euro-isdn compliant equipment. They say they'll install a NT at my
> > >office and this NT will provide me with 1 (one) SO (or was that S0 - zero
> > >opposed to the letter O?) port to connect to my PBX.
> > >
> > >My questions:
> > >What hardware do I use to connect the line to my Asterisk?
> > >What are the risks involved (bad drivers etc)?
> > >Has any one used this in Romania?
> > >
> > >Thanks!
> > >
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