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

[Julio Arruda]

Just one question, why would the Asterisk be involved in the voice path 
at all ?
I would assume a media gateway (TNT ?) would be the obvious choice to 
provide trunking side. And, for line side another gateway (not so sure 
would be as often seen), but in this case a Line side gateway, and 
again, * would not need to be in the voice path.
I know that TNTs with DS3 cards have been used by persons in this 
mailing list, and I assume that some vendor of Line gateways 
(mediatrix/someothers  for low density, I guess some 
genband/calix/occam/whatever for higher density) would not have problems 
getting their gear to work with Asterisk.
The missing piece would be the SS7, that I understand others have used 
with * also here...so...
(regarding VOIP not being an option, I have to wonder, for how long :-)..

NGN vendors don't use a TDM switching fabric (example, Nortel CS2Kc has 
no 'ENET' or anything like that), why would Asterisk need one ..


Alex Balashov wrote:
> 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
> 
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