[asterisk-users] Sort of OT: PBX vs CO

[Jay R. Ashworth]

On Fri, Aug 10, 2007 at 11:37:37AM -0400, Alex Balashov wrote:
> The other issue is scale.  A single Class 5 switch shelf can take many 
> DS3s, and even several OC-Xs.

Yeah.

<phew>

> Asterisk can take... what, a few T1s?  Maybe?  That's nice.  And entirely 
> worthless.  Someone is going to have to make it possible to take at least 
> a few DS3s in a PC before something like Asterisk + SpanDSP + whatever
> can work as any kind of "softswitch."

Short version: There's some hope Asterisk could handle the programming,
but the switching fabric simply is *not* up to the task yet.

And as a CO switch, you *must* switch TDM; VoIP isn't really an option.

> And, as has been mentioned already, SS7 is the other big problem.  And 
> OpenSS7 only supports--to the extent that it supports anything--ISUP at 
> this point.  Again, nice, but by itself abysmally worthless;  a modern 
> switch needs TCAP for LNP and LIDB and a whole host of other capabilities.

I hadn't been tracking oSS7 lately; didn't realize that.

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                   Baylink                      jra at baylink.com
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