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

[Alex Balashov]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2007, Jay R. Ashworth wrote:

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

   And I am not sure that kind of DSP density or CPU-bound framing and
transcoding is even possible.  At the very least, Asterisk would have
to have a vast array of rather expensive ASIC cards developed around it
that would offload a great deal of this functionality;  the dedicated
DSP support is a good start, but nowhere near where it needs to be.

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

   Yep.

   Asterisk is _NOT_ a switch.  Asterisk is not a transit element. 
Asterisk is an *endpoint*.  It makes for a nice PBX, feature server, etc.
Kind of like the BroadSoft, but on a much smaller scale.

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

   As far as I can tell, it's still pretty useless.  There are a variety of 
commercial/proprietary SS7 solutions available, though, but I haven't
tinkered.  And in any case they don't strike me as being able to interface
with Asterisk.

--
Alex Balashov
Evariste Systems
Web    : http://www.evaristesys.com/
Tel    : +1-678-954-0670
Direct : +1-678-954-0671