The configuration below comes after you have successfully compiled all necessary sources to run wcte11xp or wct1xxp card, the sources include zaptel, libpri and asterisk.

#modprobe zaptel
#modprobe wcte11xp (for wcte11xp card)
#modprobe wct1xxp (for wct1xxp card)

Configure /etc/zaptel.conf

span=1,1,0,ccs,hdb3,crc4
bchan=1-15,17-31
dchan=16
loadzone = us
defaultzone = us

Configure /etc/asterisk/zapata.conf

[trunkgroups]
[channels]
language=us
context=default
signalling=pri_cpe
switchtype=euroisdn
rxwink=300
loadzone=us
defaultzone=us
channel => 1-15,17-31

callerid=asreceived
usecallerid=yes
hidecallerid=no
callwaiting=yes
usecallingpres=yes
callwaitingcallerid=yes
threewaycalling=yes
transfer=yes
cancallforward=yes
callreturn=yes
echocancel=yes
echocancelwhenbridged=yes
echotraining=400
rxgain=0.0
txgain=0.0
group=1
callgroup=1
pickupgroup=1
immediate=no
busydetect=no
busycount=6
callprogress=no
faxdetect=incoming

Popularity: 1% [?]

Attractel is an all-solution VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) company founded in 2005, specialized in developing VoIP applications, mostly based on the Asterisk open-source PBX project.

If you will notice, there have been tremendous amount of applications and gadgets to make VoIP a lot easier to use for our day to day work. However, what VoIP could not offer was faxing, faxing over VoIP is practically impossible for one simple reason: VoIP telephony cheapness is achieved through compression of signals for the sake of making more calls with less bandwidth. This means that voice data gets compressed to travel to the other side, where it gets decompressed. This is performed by codecs.

One of Attractel’s products is the Faxterisk, a commercial software solution to support T.38 fax support to your Asterisk.

This is how Attractel’s Faxterisk works

• A fax terminal passes analogue data to a T.38 gateway
• The gateway takes the signal, demodulates it and transmits it over the existing IP network to another T.38 capable device(e.g. Internet Aware Fax(IAF) or a compatible Analogue Telephone Adapter (ATA)) or another T.38 gateway that modulates back the digital signal and sends it over the PSTN to another fax terminal.

From Attractel’s website:

The sensational part of our Faxterisk solution is that it is actually a far more reliable faxing method than traditional analogue faxing. This is not a phenomenon; it is due to the fact, we may want to believe that landlines are good carriers, but this is far from true as far as greater distances are concerned. IP networks are more reliable carriers over long distances and with our FoIP solution, you will inevitably enjoy faxing more than ever!

The Faxterisk package includes:

• T30faxRX for receiving normal faxes over PSTN
• T30faxTX for transmitting normal faxes over PSTN
• T38faxTX for T.38 fax origination (IAF fax)
• T38faxRX for T.38 fax termination (IAF fax)
• T38gate for FoIP gatewaying

There is no need to change anything in your Asterisk’s dial plan if you install Faxterisk. Faxterisk detects the fax signal and automatically switches to fax mode, which makes it most convenient for your working process.

NOTE: Faxterisk works with Asterisk* 1.4.X versions only.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Dell has partnered with Fonality to create an affordable “VoIP phone system” dubbed as “Fonality VoIP Phone System” for small and mid-size businesses (SMBs).

 Dell, as we all know is a company that develops, manufactures, sells and supports personal computers, servers, storage devices, switches, PDAs, computer peripherals and other technology related products while Fonality is a provider of unified communications and contact center solutions for small and medium-sized businesses.

Dell will sell the Fonality VoIP Phone System through its global SMB sales organization and its channels.

Dell, according to Chris Lyman, Fonality’s CEO didn’t choose Fonality because it is based on open-source but rather Dell was looking for three things.

The product:

• Must be high in value
• Must be super-easy to use
• Must run on Dell

The other big reason Lyman cites for Dell’s choice of Fonality is because of Fonality’s  “hybrid-hosted model“.

Well, whatever the reasons are, it is definitely a big break for Fonality and open-source VoIP software Asterisk.

Popularity: 1% [?]

While it is no longer new that PIKA telephony boards can actually work on many Asterisk-based systems using PIKA’s “Independent Channel Driver”, it is still a good news for all PIKA board lovers out there now that PIKA boards are fully compatible with Trixbox CE.

OTTAWA, Canada and MIAMI, Florida – January 22, 2008 – PIKA Technologies Inc., a developer of media-processing hardware and software, today announced that its PIKA for Asterisk family of analog and digital boards is now compatible with Fonality’s trixbox CE, an Asterisk-based IP-PBX product. This announcement comes in advance of PIKA’s participation in Internet Telephony’s Open Source Pavillion in Miami, Florida, which begins tomorrow.

“We are excited to be working with Fonality and the trixbox CE team, one of the largest Asterisk application developers in the world,” said Terry Atwood, vice president of sales, marketing and customer care at PIKA. “Compatibility with trixbox CE opens a wider audience to PIKA’s robust media processing software and hardware, giving trixbox users more choice to add value to their product offerings”

The PIKA for Asterisk suite comprises a range of hardware and software designed to support applications built on the open-source Asterisk platform. These building blocks are designed to provide cost-effective, reliable network connectivity to bridge between legacy networks and Asterisk based IP telephony applications. With the low-density PCI analog board, the analog FXO (trunk) and the FXS (station) boards (all members of PIKA’s Daytona product family) and the PrimeNet digital T1/E1 boards, application developers can select the hardware that meets their application’s particular needs. The entire portfolio of PIKA for Asterisk boards supports the latest trixbox CE version 2.4, as well as the previous 2.2 version.

The full suite of Asterisk-based products has been developed using PIKA’s proven media-processing platform, including hardware (DSP) and software-based echo cancellation that has been successfully deployed in thousands of installations around the world over the past seven years.

trixbox is available in multiple configurations, including the Community Edition (CE) which launched in 2004 as Asterisk@Home, and the newest commercial solution, trixbox Pro, a hybrid hosted solution that provides all the flexibility of the open-source concept with the added value and stability of a commercial solution. trixbox Pro was recently named Product of the Year 2007 by Internet Telephony magazine.

This is just the first step in an ongoing collaboration between trixbox and PIKA. Fonality also plans to work with PIKA to get trixbox Pro running on PIKA Warp, the company’s out-of-the-box appliance for Asterisk. A development plan is in place to bring this to market around the same time as PIKA’s late spring launch of the Appliance.

“The combination of trixbox and PIKA brings a new range of connectivity options to the trixbox community,” said Kerry Garrison, trixbox Community Director at Fonality. “We look forward to building our relationship with PIKA and to providing our customers with new, reliable and affordable hardware options on which to deploy our solutions.”

For more information on PIKA for Asterisk boards or to download datasheets, visit http://www.pikatechnologies.com/english/view.asp?x=347

Popularity: 1% [?]

I have been working almost the whole day resolving a problem in my newly configured Linux Predictive Dialer which will be used in our remote office. The message that keeps on flooding my asterisk screen is “HDLC Bad FCS (8) on Primary D-channel of span 1” and then the the delta channel (DCH) of the ISDN interconnection between the Digium and Telco switch keeps on failing. I began to scout for answers from other Digium users who might have experienced the same problem in the past. Finally, I got an information from Digium website that the cause of the problem can be an I/O error or bad configuration. I hurriedly checked my configuration and found no error since it is exactly the same with other six dialers I configured previously which are all working properly. I was surprised at the other information I found from Digium website that the cause of the problem can be the driver of the built-in Intel 100Mbps ethernet card in my system. I began to wonder about the relationship of a network card and a Digium card installed in my Linux machine. Since I had no other choice, I tried to compile a new ethernet driver for my Linux but the problem after recompiling a new driver is still there. I also tried to recompile the Linux Kernel hoping that the problem will be resolved after I enabled ACPI but the result is still negative. I took my dinner thinking about the problem and I began to realize that I need to check for timing and clocking issue between the Digium card and the Telco switch. Without finishing my dinner, I hurriedly get back to the office and configure the proper clocking and T1 timing between the Digium card and the Telco equipment. ALAS! I was able to resolve the problem and now I will treat myself for another dinner since I wasn’t able to finish the previous dinner I had.

Popularity: 2% [?]

trixbox, formerly known as Asterisk@home released trixbox CE 2.4 which includes the following:

1.) Operating System is CentOS 5.1 which has wide support for many motherboards.
2.) Asterisk 1.4 which includes the following features:

Generic Jitter Buffer which improves the quality of a call during network congestion.

Asterisk Extension Language Version 2 which simplifies programming and dial plan configuration.

T.38 support which allows FAX to pass through the server.

Jabber/Jingle/GoogleTalk which supports compatibility with all of these networks.

Increased language capabilities, Asterisk 1.4 offers new language capabilities in English, Spanish and French.

Unified Messaging- integrates voicemail, email, and fax into a central mailbox where users can send, retrieve and manage all of their messages using any communication device.

Whisper Paging which allows for selective, pre-programmed call interruption with controlled volume levels and muting capabilities.

3.) FreePBX 2.3
4.) WebMeetme 3
5.) Echo cancellation

Popularity: 1% [?]