[asterisk-users] ITSP's no longer supporting IAX?

[Lee Howard]

Steve Totaro wrote:
> IAX2 has been a lemon since it's inception.  Sure, some people have
> success.  It seems to work OK for IAXModem.
>   

I chose to use IAX2 in developing IAXmodem because IAX2 is relatively 
simple compared to SIP and because at the time I didn't know of any 
easy-to-use SIP library with a simple sample program.  libiax2 and its 
accompanying sample programs were ideal for getting things going quickly.

In retrospect, I still think that it was a good decision.  However, if I 
had chosen to use SIP instead it would make things like adding T.38 
support into it much easier.  (But, that said, my purpose in developing 
IAXmodem was to interface HylaFAX with TDM cards through Asterisk 
without additional hardware.  T.38 support wasn't - and still isn't - 
ever a goal.)

Yet, I did have to work hard to get libiax2 working right.

> I think the problem is that from the slightest version change to
> another, two boxes with different versions and many times the same
> version don't work well.
>   

The root cause of that, I suspect, is that Asterisk itself does not use 
libiax2 for chan_iax2.  Consequently, developers really don't have a 
reference library that is used as the "standard".

Thanks,

Lee.