[Asterisk-Users] 3x AVM Fritz!Card PCI for a EuroISDN PBX.

[Chris Wilson]

Hi David,

> I'm currently considering various PBX solutions for our office telephone
> network, and would very much like to use Asterisk. Currently, my
> research is incomplete. I have been recommended to use the above cards,
> but it is unclear from my Googling whether my configuration will work:
> 
>    - 3x Fritz!Card PCI's in one host.
>    - 3x 6 b-channels.
>    - ~20 Budgetone (and some others) handsets.
> 
> Can anyone answer these questions:
> 
>    - Will the 3 ISDN cards function correctly in one host?

We have done this and it works, using a variant of the hack posted on the 
website. Points to watch out for:

- It's not reliable. We've had Asterisk spontaneously refuse to dial out 
or accept connections on CAPI until the cards are reset. We don't 
recommend doing this in production.

- You need to be careful with the patch because there are two types of 
cards, and the patch isn't clever about how it detects them, so either 
make sure that all your cards are absolutely identical in /proc/pci, or 
fix the patch.

>    - Will running all 3 cards flat out require particularly beefy
>      hardware?

Doesn't seem to.

>    - Will the Grandstream phones provide a good equivilant to
>      professional dedicated PBX phones? (assuming a good network)  I
>      have read lots about echo problems and so on, is this an issue?

They are cheap and nasty feeling, and not particularly reliable, so I 
would say no. Cisco 7960 is much better, although more of a pain to get 
working out of the box, since you need DHCP, TFTP and configuration tools.

Cheers, Chris.
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