[Freeswitch-users] E3 Card on Freeswitch ?

[Steve Underwood]

On 04/27/2010 10:43 PM, Anita Hall wrote:
> Hi
>
> Please check out this product
>
> http://www.sangoma.com/products/hardware_products/data_networking/a301.html
>
> Does it work on Freeswitch or Asterisk ?
> Do Telcos provide an E3 connection ?
>
> One of our customers had an inquiry for terminating 6000 calls 
> simultaneously. I want to do some homework before taking it further 
> with him. If I use E1 lines, I will need 6000 / 30 = 200 E1 lines, 
> which does not look feasible ?
>
> Thanks for any input you may provide.
>
> regards,
>
That card only operates as an E3 or T3 data card. It is not channelised to work as a PSTN voice card. So, no, it doesn't work with Asterisk or Freeswitch - unless you are looking for IP connecion for VoIP.

Sangoma used to talk about producing a channelised revision of the card, but it looks like the potential sales have never looked promising enough to make it happen.

Digium used to have an E3/T3 card on their web site, but I assume they canned it. You don't hear anything about it now.

I never found an E3/T3 card which is properly channelised to act as a PSTN interface for a package like Freeswitch or Asterisk.

A lot of people will try to tell you that you really wouldn't want to handle so many calls in one box, but that is a rather odd thing to say these days. Servers are much faster than when Asterisk started, and the goal posts have moved. People handle this many VoIP calls on a single box these days. If suitable E3/T3 hardware were available, a modern server could be constructed to handle this number of PSTN calls.

Steve