[Asterisk-Dev] OT possible idea for alternative uses of Digium T1 Hardware

[Steve Underwood]

Hi Chad,

I think many of us have thought of this. Some of us have even produced 
fragments of it, when needed. The problem is always finding the time to 
do a proper job. :-)

Regards,
Steve


Chad Wicker wrote:

>Please comment.
>
>Over the weekend I was thinking about my job and what I do for a
>living.  I am in the middle of trying to set up my 4 port T1 card  for
>use in integrating an Asterisk implementation to switch calls via E&M
>wink T1 to our EMX2500 switch.  This implementation should be simple and
>usefull in dropping a DID down to one timeslot on a T1 (an extension)
>but I digress.  In the middle of the setup my favorite T1 Testset
>(Sunrise T10) died on me.  I was distraught and called them up.  Am in
>the proccess of getting it fixed, but it lead me to some interesting
>ideas.  A quick search on google didn't bring anything up on any open
>Source test set types of applications.  
>
>so...
>
>Has anyone though of using zaptel hardware to build a testset
>application.  Sending patterns could be as easy as getting a sample of
>the various test patterns and sending them to the T1.  Proccessing the
>results would be more harry but I doubt that this would be too taxing. 
>I envision one of those Hand portable computer enclosures with a
>ram-disk instead of a harddrive, and making a protable network test set.
> Voice channel access could utilize some code from the asterisk project.
> A Web based front end would be nice as a network test set, but a
>application based would probably be a good first attempt.  I think that
>this could be used to make one kick butt system and further spur digium
>hardware sales, but I am unqualified to do the programming.  
>
>Desireable features could be easily grabbed from the slick sheets of
>existing hardware test sets and additional features could be added in
>similar to asterisk.  One such feature that would be nice would be to be
>able to record off the buss the voice being used. This could be
>interesting as a pass though call recorder, triggered by the signal
>states.  Such recordings are also usefull in explaining problems to
>vendors ( a little more accurate a description that there is a funny
>popping sound when I whistle into the phone).
>
>I intend this e-mail to spur conversations as to the possibility of
>this concept, and hopefully starting off something wonderfull.  It would
>enrich digium sales (always a good goal) and also provide non-buisiness
>class users access to the testing equipment that usually costs major
>$$$.  I also think that this would add value to asterisk implementations
>in that the same hardware a Asterisk is built out of could be used to
>test the circuits coming into it.  If someone thinks this e-mail is
>appropriate for other lists of discussion or the wiki feel free to
>include it.
>
>Chad C. Wicker
>Systems Engineer
>Petrocom
>  
>