[asterisk-users] Big time system

[David Backeberg]

On Fri, Jun 25, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Cary Fitch <caryf at usawide.net> wrote:
> I see some talking about TNTs in this forum.  Those are 672 lines or in some
> versions double that, what is used behind them to do the processing, etc.

So a channelized DS3 is roughly 28*23 channels in US if you do one
D-channel per PRI (other options are possible). That gets you 644
channels. You can either buy gear that terminates a channelized DS3
natively, like a Cisco AS series device to voip-ify the PSTN channels,
or you can get a device like an Adtran MX2800 which breaks out the DS3
into individual T1/PRIs, which you can then terminate with a number of
different technologies, including a lot of Digium cards, or you can
voipify with appliances like a Cisco 3845.

So you can get a lot of asterisk boxes that have native DAHDI
channels, or you can put a layer in-between that adds expense, but
increases routing options.

That's how the DS3 works. To bundle DS3s, you generally get fiber to
the premise, and demux it at your data center using equipment approved
or provided by your telco of choice. If you're talking 30k channels,
that's some bigger glass, which then demuxes down to OC-whatever,
which eventually demuxes to lots of DS3s, but honestly I've never
worked at a scale past a handful of DS3s, so there may be a vastly
superior way to do things at that scale.