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

[Frank Bulk]

BRI is not even supported on Nortel's rural market softswitch, the CS-1500.
BRI is a dead horse..

Frank

-----Original Message-----
From: asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com
[mailto:asterisk-users-bounces at lists.digium.com] On Behalf Of Michael
Higgins
Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2009 11:50 AM
To: Asterisk Users Mailing List - Non-Commercial Discussion
Subject: [asterisk-users] USA BRI -- any hope at all?

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,

--
 |\  /|        |   |          ~ ~
 | \/ |        |---|          `|` ?
 |    |ichael  |   |iggins    \^ /
 michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org

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