[asterisk-users] announcement: chan_nms - channel driver for NMS Communications hardware

[Arkadi Shishlov]

I'm pleased to announce the availability of CHAN_NMS - channel driver for NMS 
Communications (now Dialogic) hardware. The attached README explains it all. The 
project website is
http://chan-nms.hosting.lv/


CHAN_NMS is an Asterisk PBX channel driver that supports NMS Communications [1]
(acquired by Dialogic [2]) Open Access line of products, that includes E1/T1
boards [3] for PCI(-X), PCIe, and cPCI(e) bus.

[1] http://www.nmscommunications.com/
[2] http://www.dialogic.com/press/press_releases/pr_20081124_NMS.htm
[3] http://www.nmscommunications.com/DevPlatforms/OpenAccess/IP

What are the features of NMS stack this driver can bring to Asterisk?
- Broad protocol support: PRI ISDN, SS7, and various CAS;
- High-level call control channel driver, yet easily extendable to handle
   protocol specific nuances and services;
- G.729, G.723.1, and iLBC codecs implemented by on-board DSPs;
- RTP streams directly from card's onboard Ethernet ports;
- Certification;
- NMS brand can make things happen in some situations when you have troubles
   selling Asterisk alone.

The software is released under permissive 2-clause BSD license, but it's up
to you to work out all the licensing details for Asterisk, NMS software, and
codecs royalties that might apply to your product and/or environment.

The downside of using proprietary binary kernel driver is that you must run
RedHat Enterprise Linux kernel. CentOS is compatible and works very well as
a free alternative.

Currently we have CG6565 4-port PRI board working with E1 EuroISDN and T1 NI2
in a test lab with the equipment from Avaya, Samsung, Kvant. The supported
configuration is:
- Asterisk 1.2 and 1.4.
- Single CG6565 card with ISDN protocol for all trunks. Up to 8 trunks are
   supported by single PCI board, and 16 trunks by cPCI. The protocol details
   are configured in NMS board configuration file and there are lot of tuning
   possibilities.
- Single Asterisk dial-plan context for incoming calls is selected in
   channel configuration file.
- When making outgoing call you can select trunk and/or timeslot, alternatively
   first free timeslot across all trunks will be used.

The channel driver should be considered an ALPHA quality product. In subsequent
releases we will implement more features:
- Asterisk 1.6 support, probably also CallWeaver and FreeSWITCH;
- multiple cards support;
- NFAS setups;
- more protocols - CAS, also SS7 and SIGTRAN;
- call transfer;
- hold/retrieve;
- overlapped sending and receiving;
- more configuration parameters;
- testing scenarios and scripts for automated testing;
- CG6565 has Ethernet ports, so it might be possible to offload RTP from
   the host after call is established - not sure it is possible due to Asterisk
   architecture.

<snip original README software build instructions>

To get help or suggest a feature, please join CHAN_NMS discussion group at
Google http://groups.google.com/group/chan-nms

In case you want to send a private mail with a patch, or maybe a business
proposal, or you want to participate in development process, please write to
Arkadi.Shishlov at GMail.Com.