[asterisk-users] Is this bad hardware? Dahdi-v-X100 clone

[listuser at spamomania.co.uk]

On Mon, 2009-12-14 at 14:10 -0600, Tilghman Lesher wrote:

> > I don't want to start a war, but there is a square to that. I'm new to
> > Asterisk having spent years in analogue telephony. If I can get a test
> > Asterisk working on a cheap clone card without a hitch, I'm most likely
> > to expand this and buy TDM400's and above and swear its virtues to all.
> 
> On the contrary, you're likely to continue to buy clone cards.  If there's no
> advantage to buying premium hardware, why would anybody spend the
> excess cash? 
The quality argument springs to mind - but it depends on the final
application. Perhaps the DIGIUM cards are priced unrealistically for
what they are? I can't really comment on the commercial aspects as it's
not an area where I have sufficient qualification. 

> > However, as they cost of some of the DIGIUM cards is about the same (if
> > not more) than many SIP gateways suitable for SOHO's and SME, I'm
> > unlikely to buy an expensive hardware card just to 'prove' it works OK
> > on a whim.
> 
> Actually, many people have taken it a step further than that.  If you can get
> a SIP trunk provider on a broadband connection who will provision a telephone
> number to you, why are you even bothering with analog telephony at all?
> 
It's a valid point. Sometimes it's about bringing together what you
already have on site, without putting it out to a farm. There is also
the resilience and multiple points of failure angle. That said, I've
seen a business crippled when a Shortel system failed. The ISDN 30 on
fibre was useless without the hardware. In this case the saving grace
was a PSTN faxline with DSL. This was able to pipe calls diverted to an
ITSP (Sipgate) for collection. The square would be if you have an ISTP
remotely handling everything, their failure can cripple you, as can a
(remarkably common) DSL failure. But yes, it's a serious option suitable
to some, in the same way BT Featureline Compacts suited some :-)