> OK, I've spent way more time than I wanted to on getting > an x100p clone to work in Australia. I'm happy to consider > other (more functional) options. > > Does anyone have an opinion on both the Sipura 3000 and > other Digium cards (like the TDM400P)? > > I need something that works with no much fuzz. I know the > Sipura 3000 is cheaper the the TDM400P card. > > All I need is to channel my POTS line into Asterisk. Nothing else! > And I only have one line!
The spa3k works just fine but it also has a few little quirks that may require you to devote some time to resolve. For example, it has a very large number of configurable options that allow you to do just about anything that you'd like, but the documentation on how to use some of the config options aren't very clear to someone that does not have extensive experience with the product. I also experience some small amount of what I believe is "talk off" where the spa3k intermitantly reacts to speech. It has not dropped the call or anything, but once in awhile will generate dtmf tones during a conversation as though it detected fax tones or something like that. It also seems to flip-flop between full-duplex and half- duplex audio occasionally. It seems female voices tend to be more objectionable then male voices in some cases. (I've played with two different spa's, about four different firmware versions, and have seen the same issues with each. But, maybe I'm being a little hyper-critical of voice quality issues.) Support for the spa products is basically limited to user-lists unless you're large enough to be considered a reseller of their products. They too are very secretive about existing problems. If you've watched the list for the last several months, you've probably noticed the TDM card has some issues as well. The most disturbing is the card goes out to lunch about every two weeks, which has required users to stop asterisk and reload the TDM drivers. Not everyone with the TDM card experience this problem, but those of us that do, have had the problem since the card originally came out. Digium is supposedly working at diagnosing/resolving the problem, but they appear to be highly secretive of that effort. It certainly does not help that the problem is so infrequent, making it extremely difficult for _anyone_ to try to diagnose the problem. (I've made some modifications to my TDM card to help diagnose/resolve the issue, but its way too early to tell if those mod's have actually impacted the problem.) The TDM card and the digium-sold x100p card use the same basic code and zaptel drivers, etc, so whatever issues (eg, echo cancellation) one might experience with the x100p aren't any better with the TDM card. (I swapped two x100p cards for a TDM card with four fxo pstn lines attached, and as of right now, it works fairly well except for the intermitant two-week failures.) I might also add that several of the digium cards have an issue with recording & playing back voicemail messages. For whatever reason, there is a 10db loss in transmission levels when one attempts to play back voicemail messages via the pstn network (bug #2023). That bug has been around for about six/seven months and has never been addressed. The 10db loss has been measured (very professionally) but everyone at digium refuses to believe its a bug. Regardless of what its called, the 10db loss makes it almost impossible to listen to voicemails remotely unless you're in a very very very quiet room. Multiple * implementors have complained about this problem, so its not a simple parameter/configuration adjustment, etc. The voicemail playback volume is significantly worse for those asterisk systems that are further away from the Central Office. That is due to the pstn plant loss (unavoidable) on top of the 10db loss. So, if your asterisk box were 18,000 feet from the CO (as an example only), one would incure about a 7db plant loss in recording the voicemail, the 10db loss noted in bug 2023, plus an additional 7db loss listening to that voicemail via the pstn. That's a total of 24db loss, which makes listening extremely difficult. (If the asterisk machine were colocated in the Central Office, listening to voicemails would only incure the 10db bug, which does not have the same user impact as the 24db loss. So, those folks that are closer to the CO don't complain about this particular bug.) The 10db loss has been noted by users of the TDM card, T1 cards, etc, from digium; it is never seen when using other vendor's pstn gateways. The x100p (and clones) tend to be just "okay" for low volume soho use, but as you've already experienced, the majority of those cards were designed/targeted to the US market back when WinModems were popular. Some of the clone cards do have chip sets for the non- US market, but the people selling them won't tell you which chip set is on their for-sale cards. Therefore, implementing a clone in non-US (eg, non-600-ohm pstn networks) is a crap-shoot at best. _______________________________________________ Asterisk-Users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-users
