[asterisk-users] USA BRI -- any hope at all?

[Michael Higgins]

Folks --

First, apologies for not lurking for weeks or months to get the culture of the list. I read the recent post about improvement to the quality of posts with some amusement and full agreement. The problem is a big and very real one. I hope I'm not deepening it.

But my question isn't explicitly asked with this subject line or definitively answered in the archives -- that I have found.

What I did find left me with the impression that USA 'BRI', uh, '2B1Q' protocol(?) is not supported by *any* hardware vendor, at all, period, nor is it tested and proved in the software... stack(?), in one related branch or another on the OS side.

A couple of direct inquiries to card vendors have dead-ended with a flat "no", or requests for development funds(!) -- apparently there is code for one card, one vendor, that runs against 'bristuff', or did at one time, but wasn't maintained through several Asterisk releases (if the code was even released to the community... IDK).

Is this common, that someone codes to their chip on their card and sells it to one or two consumers, then lets it drop and never gives the code up for continued development? (It seems contrary to GNU/Linux licensing conventions, but, again, I'm not paid as a software developer. I just think they might have sold more cards with a less proprietary approach.)

Anyway, can I, with confidence, state (to the $employer) that Asterisk on linux via USA 'BRI' digital lines simply isn't possible? (In that, obviously, I can't pay for development nor do beta testing, each with vague hope that it might work okay someday...)

If this is the case, then I must use multiple analog lines to access PSTN, or pay premium for 'PRI' pipes (80% of which we will never need)... is that about correct?

Thanks in advance for any pointers, specific RTFM suggestions, any help appreciated. 

If there is a different list to post this query to, I'm not (yet) aware of it.

Cheers,

-- 
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 michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org