[asterisk-users] North American voice BRI - Informal survey

[Stephen Bosch]

Jeff Davis wrote:
> Stephen Bosch wrote:
>> Your rep at Sangoma? Or your reseller?
> 
> That wasn't very clear. Sorry. It was Sangoma.
> (I would be more verbose, but I don't want to spam the list)

I just wanted to make sure it wasn't stale information.

>> This is a real chicken-and-egg problem. More people would get BRI if
>> there were affordable hardware for it.
>>
>> I would like to see them write a NAm driver for it. To get them to take
>> the chance, there have to be enough people willing to purchase the card
>> to make them consider it seriously.
>>
>> The other option is a bounty or community support to get it done. The
>> hardware already exists.
>>
>> The more people make noise about this, the better the chances of that
>> happening.
> 
> 
> If there was a driver available, I'm still not sure how many installs I 
> could sell. Verizon wants to pretend the service doesn't exist, and the 
> largest CLEC in my area doesn't even sell it. (I even offered to buy my 
> CLEC rep dinner and she wouldn't sell it to me.)

This is not at all surprising -- they'd be re-selling Verizon's service.
We've already heard from another poster how eager CLECs are to resell
the incumbent's service. A lot of mutual sabotage goes on (and I have
this from insiders).

There is the theory of the "deregulated, competitive market" and then
there is the practice.

> Without telco support I 
> think that the only real market for this is the DIY crowd.

ISDN had the bad luck of entering adoption right around the AT&T
breakup. BRI does cost as much to provision as PRI for a smaller
revenue, so, with maximizing profits on the brain, they're just not keen.

It's also small thinking.

But it is also the law. This stuff is supposed to be available.

> Of course, as you point out, we'll never know how big the market is 
> without a driver.

The marginal effort of another driver is comparatively low. The card
already exists.

> I think that the only real incentive for Sangoma to write a driver for 
> an unproven market would be if there were a community driver available, 
> and the cards start selling. The addition of a manufacturer supplied and 
> supported driver would likely increase sales.

This is the source of my other suggestion, that we put up a bounty or
launch a community driver project. I've always felt there was latent
demand -- this is an unserved need:

- smaller installations need advanced features like call progress
control, that they can only get in a BRI
- the advantages in sound quality are substantial when compared with analog
- unmanaged VoIP lines are just not reliable enough for serious businesses
- North America is totally behind on this, we look like chumps

I'm prepared to sacrifice myself for this and get a BRI for our office
if we can get a driver that supports the signalling. That's a
contribution I'm happy to make.

-Stephen-