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

[Jon Pounder]

Quoting Dave Donovan <donovan.david at gmail.com>:

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

I hear you loud and clear - I am in much the same situation.
from what I know about the cards (which isn't much) there are 2 types  
just like there are modems and "winmodems", the hard bri cards  
understand all the signalling in hardware (its different between  
na/euro much like a modem has different standards it can adhere to  
when connecting to different remotes even though they are all carried  
on the same physical type of line) so if you get a "hardware" card you  
need one that understands our signalling here. The soft cards are  
pretty much universal since they are implemented in software only, but  
you need a driver that understands the NA signalling - I am not sure  
about the state of this situation right now. just like their analog  
cousins the soft cards are cheap, the hard cards are costly, and the  
NA ones rare.



>
> 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



Jon Pounder

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