[asterisk-users] Questions on X100P/X101P cards

[Vincent]

Hello,

	I'm looking for a dirt cheap solution for SOHO use to handle at most
a couple of POTS lines, and I notice that X10?P cards go for $15 on
eBay as opposed to $90 for an OpenVox card or over $200 for a Sangoma.

I have a couple of questions about those cheap FXO cards:

1. Are they all glorified softmodems, ie. none has an on-board CPU or
DSP and outsources all processing to the computer's CPU?

2. Are they all bad, no matter what chipset is used (Intel, Motoral,
Ambient)? If not, which offer good enough quality to handle a single
POTS line?

3. Why are they often bad quality? Because the driver itself is badly
written? Because PC's don't have enough speed to handle the tasks
using their own CPU (hard to believe, but I don't know)?

Thank you.