Re: [gentoo-user] telephony

[Michael Higgins <linux@evolone.org>]

On Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:08:48 +0100
Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk> wrote:

[...]
> If you want Asterisk to answer your conventional POTS phone line
> then you can use an X100P card which you can buy for c £17. AIUI this
> is basically a modem based on a certain chipset that Digium have
> written drivers for.

They have unequivocally dropped support for these cheap cards. They suck anyway, but this isn't to say you can't play with one.... I still do, after all.

> At one time Digium sold this hardware at quite a
> premium, but people realised that other models would work just as
> well, and Asterisk (who are sponsored by / part of Digium) has been
> very fair about supporting these "clones" in the codebase.

Indeed, mine is a clone, and they are equally unconcerned about my problems with it. '-)

> They're
> obviously not supported if you buy an official support package, and
> IIRC I have seen posters on the Asterisk mailing list being snobby
> and refusing to help posters using the clones because it's "not
> supporting the developers".

This may be true, but I believe it's more because the cards, as every one will tell you straight up (unless they are selling you the card, of course) are of poor quality and design. 

> I don't know how well the X100P works, or
> if there are any "gotyas" to look out for, but I'm pretty sure plenty
> of people are using them. 

Yep. There are driver issues, voltage/signalling problems... and in the end, even if working, they won't sound good. There's a reason they are, like, $10 on Ebay.

Basically, they are decent winmodems (if such a thing is possible)... that they can be used for telephony is a fluke.

> A couple of friends of mine (who I
> considered going into IT consulting with) implemented Asterisk after
> I mentioned it to them and I'm sure they've used the X100P; I think
> those lads have deployed Asterisk for customers since.

Yep. Definitely a way to get your hands dirty. 

By the time you figure out what you need to know to get a decent answering machine with your new toy, you can go buy real hardware and make telephony appliances. 

Meanwhile, anyone likely to be of any real help while you experiment, is doing just that, and has no interest in watching/helping you suffer, from what I've gathered.

My time figuring out the first glitch between my card and the (sort of) supporting driver would have been saved/paid for by buying a real FXO/FXS card initially. I didn't do that, but you, or the OP, still can. And, finally, if I want to ever *use* this experiment in the real world, I'll have to replace the X100p with a decent sounding device anyway.

Cheers,

-- 
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 michael.higgins[at]evolone[dot]org