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

[Dave Donovan]

Sorry I'm a little late to the thread but this question has puzzled me as
well.  My key thing for me is hardware.

On 6/27/07, Joe Greco <jgreco at ns.sol.net> wrote:

> > Thoughts? Who here has used BRI in North America? And when you did, what
> > interface hardware did you use?
>
> Well, at the time, there was pretty much nothing that was considered to be
> "reliably" supported by Asterisk for NA BRI.
>
> I picked up an Adtran Atlas 550 with a 4BRI-U interface and an octal FXS,
> and I use the unit's built-in T1 network port to connect to an Asterisk
> box.  This works nicely, except for the things for which it doesn't work
> nicely.  The box is fundamentally being used as a BRI<->PRI translator,
> but gives me some neat extras.  .....


Has anyone else seen a working hardware solution that didn't cost an arm and
a leg?  It seems to me that a BRI card should cost less than $100.  I think
I remember a German friend telling me that they go for around $40 dollars.

I know that I can get a BRI with voice service out of Bell.  I think they
have to provide it because of the CRTC tariffs.

The thing that has stopped me from trying it in the past is the uncertainty
around hardware.  Do I understand correctly that NA (North American?) BRI is
different from the European version and that European hardware won't work?

If I could get a card for a few hundred bucks then I'd be willing to give
this a shot.  Unfortunately, I can't afford a few grand for the Adtran setup
described, although it does sound cool and the BRI<->PRI conversion approach
is a clever way of overcoming the hardware scarcity.

For the number of times that I see people trying to get digital style
features out of analog lines, and banging their head against the wall, I'd
love to get a BRI working and be able to tell you all how it worked out.

Dave
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