On Sat, 2005-06-04 at 09:50 +0100, Tom Fanning wrote: > >Agreed, those are the figures we were able to get > >from Digium... I'm still waiting for a confirmation, > >but I'm being safe with a $4k estimate.. > <snip> > > What's so special about Digium cards that makes them this expensive? $4000 > for a PCB is extortion IMO!
A ds3 does 672 channels, normally on 2 strands of coax (and there are bnc connectors on the pic on digiums site). The port cost is then about $6/port. That is really cheap in all honesty. 672 ports can in theory support about 10,000 customers (given the rather dated 7% of people use the phone at any given time - that figure I think was accurate in the early/mid 90s and I am sure its higher now but I havent checked any reliable sources for an update. I did read a more recent study that suggested that the average person usese the phone 6 minutes a day, I use it for hours a day my parents maybe 16 mintes 3 times a week, so who knows). Even if its 5000 customers (ie calling is 2x higher, people stay on 2x longer, etc) that is still much more cost effective than the 28 individual DS1s that it would take to fill a DS3. There is a EU standard that afaik is framed basically the same but instead of 4 DS2s which are 7 DS1s (logical framing a DS2 always exists on a DS3 physically afaik) its built upon E1s, so there are slightly fewer E1s since they are 30 DS0s instead of 24. Not to mention that a DS3 circuit normally costs about what 12 DS1s cost so its like getting 16 free. This makes everything cheaper in the long run, thus companies are able to offer better rates for PSTN interconnection which can be passed to the consumer. I am curious on cpu load, if all dsp functions are done via software instead of offloaded onto a specialized processor (DSP board) that has to have some effect on call processing, meaning a more beefy machine to handle the load, and the real possiblity of not having a single board do everything (application, media gateway, VoIP, etc). While it makes sense on that type of a system (high capacity) to spread it out for load balancing and redundancy and all that stuff that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling, it may now be more of a requirement. -- Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com Bret McDanel UK +44 870 340 4605 Germany +49 801 777 555 3402 US +1 360 207 0479 or +1 516 687 5200 FreeWorldDialup: 635378
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