Hi All, I purchased a card from Howler Technologies a few months ago and I'm now only getting to setting it up. When I went to their website to download the drivers, I noticed that they have now ceased trading. Does anyone have any further information or how their products will be supported in the future with Freeswitch? Thanks David
I doubt any of their products will be supported. /b On Jul 20, 2010, at 7:13 PM, David Allen wrote:
Hi All,
I purchased a card from Howler Technologies a few months ago and I'm now only getting to setting it up. When I went to their website to download the drivers, I noticed that they have now ceased trading. Does anyone have any further information or how their products will be supported in the future with Freeswitch?
Thanks David
On 07/21/2010 08:13 AM, David Allen wrote:
Hi All,
I purchased a card from Howler Technologies a few months ago and I'm now only getting to setting it up. When I went to their website to download the drivers, I noticed that they have now ceased trading. Does anyone have any further information or how their products will be supported in the future with Freeswitch?
Someone may be able to give you a copy of the drivers, but won't you need access to Howler's licencing server to enable your licences? Steve
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
Someone may be able to give you a copy of the drivers, but won't you need access to Howler's licencing server to enable your licences?
At least with Sangoma transcoding card you don't need any servers to enable licensing (and you have a bunch of codecs, not just G729). Moises Silva Senior Software Engineer Sangoma Technologies Inc. | NEW 100 Renfrew Drive, Suite 100, Markham ON L3R 9R6 Canada t. 1 905 474 1990 x128 | e. moy@sangoma.com
On 07/21/2010 08:42 AM, Moises Silva wrote:
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org <mailto:steveu@coppice.org>> wrote:
Someone may be able to give you a copy of the drivers, but won't you need access to Howler's licencing server to enable your licences?
At least with Sangoma transcoding card you don't need any servers to enable licensing (and you have a bunch of codecs, not just G729).
You have a custom card at Sangoma, so I guess you have more fine grained control with the card itself. Howler just used commercial Cell based cards from Leadtek, and had to live with their strengths and weaknesses. Since they sold the licences separate from the card, so you could buy a card with just a few licences for a sensible price, I think they tied down the licences in the same way they did for codecs running on the server's CPU. Perhaps an actual Howler user could chime in here with more info. Steve
But finally howler show to us something good: With the Cell chips used in the Leadteck (are the same on a PS3), we can make a transcoding equipment with a PS3 for $299 USD... :) Using the Ethernet of the PS3 we can send the RTP to the transcoding software and the device has enough power to convert 400+ concurrent calls.... only think about it. Best Regards... Fernando Romo On Jul 20, 2010, at 7:50 PM, Steve Underwood wrote:
On 07/21/2010 08:42 AM, Moises Silva wrote:
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org <mailto:steveu@coppice.org>> wrote:
Someone may be able to give you a copy of the drivers, but won't you need access to Howler's licencing server to enable your licences?
At least with Sangoma transcoding card you don't need any servers to enable licensing (and you have a bunch of codecs, not just G729).
You have a custom card at Sangoma, so I guess you have more fine grained control with the card itself. Howler just used commercial Cell based cards from Leadtek, and had to live with their strengths and weaknesses. Since they sold the licences separate from the card, so you could buy a card with just a few licences for a sensible price, I think they tied down the licences in the same way they did for codecs running on the server's CPU. Perhaps an actual Howler user could chime in here with more info.
Steve
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Sure, I think about it: "please press cross and L2 at the same time to speak to an attendant" :) The idea is nice of course. The issue is that Linux can't be installed anymore on a PS3 at the time. David Ponzone Direction Technique email: david.ponzone@ipeva.fr tel: 01 74 03 18 97 gsm: 06 66 98 76 34 Service Client IPeva tel: 0811 46 26 26 www.ipeva.fr - www.ipeva-studio.com Ce message et toutes les pièces jointes sont confidentiels et établis à l'intention exclusive de ses destinataires. Toute utilisation ou diffusion non autorisée est interdite. Tout message électronique est susceptible d'altération. IPeva décline toute responsabilité au titre de ce message s'il a été altéré, déformé ou falsifié. Si vous n'êtes pas destinataire de ce message, merci de le détruire immédiatement et d'avertir l'expéditeur. Le 21/07/2010 à 04:00, Fernando Romo a écrit :
But finally howler show to us something good: With the Cell chips used in the Leadteck (are the same on a PS3), we can make a transcoding equipment with a PS3 for $299 USD... :)
Using the Ethernet of the PS3 we can send the RTP to the transcoding software and the device has enough power to convert 400+ concurrent calls.... only think about it.
Best Regards... Fernando Romo
On Jul 20, 2010, at 7:50 PM, Steve Underwood wrote:
On 07/21/2010 08:42 AM, Moises Silva wrote:
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org <mailto:steveu@coppice.org>> wrote:
Someone may be able to give you a copy of the drivers, but won't you need access to Howler's licencing server to enable your licences?
At least with Sangoma transcoding card you don't need any servers to enable licensing (and you have a bunch of codecs, not just G729).
You have a custom card at Sangoma, so I guess you have more fine grained control with the card itself. Howler just used commercial Cell based cards from Leadtek, and had to live with their strengths and weaknesses. Since they sold the licences separate from the card, so you could buy a card with just a few licences for a sensible price, I think they tied down the licences in the same way they did for codecs running on the server's CPU. Perhaps an actual Howler user could chime in here with more info.
Steve
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On 07/21/2010 10:00 AM, Fernando Romo wrote:
But finally howler show to us something good: With the Cell chips used in the Leadteck (are the same on a PS3), we can make a transcoding equipment with a PS3 for $299 USD... :)
Using the Ethernet of the PS3 we can send the RTP to the transcoding software and the device has enough power to convert 400+ concurrent calls.... only think about it.
Best Regards... Fernando Romo
Actually, the Howler card was a Leadtek PxVC1100 . It uses a Toshiba Spursengine chip. That has 4 Cell SPUs running at 1.5GHz. The PS3's chip has 7 Cell SPUs running at 3GHz. So, a PS3 is potentially a much faster transcoding platform..... or it was until they killed Linux installs. Howler didn't show us anything. What they did was a perfectly obvious route for transcoding. They were just the first people to do the engineering. Now the Cell is dying it doesn't look such a marvellous choice, but it certainly looked promising when they started work. Steve
Makes perfect sense ;) /b On Jul 20, 2010, at 7:42 PM, Moises Silva wrote:
At least with Sangoma transcoding card you don't need any servers to enable licensing (and you have a bunch of codecs, not just G729).
Moises Silva Senior Software Engineer Sangoma Technologies Inc. | NEW 100 Renfrew Drive, Suite 100, Markham ON L3R 9R6 Canada t. 1 905 474 1990 x128 | e. moy@sangoma.com
Well... Could Sangoma make a "Conversion program" to the ex howler customers? Best Regards... Fernando "El Pop" Romo On Jul 20, 2010, at 7:42 PM, Moises Silva wrote:
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 8:33 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote: Someone may be able to give you a copy of the drivers, but won't you need access to Howler's licencing server to enable your licences?
At least with Sangoma transcoding card you don't need any servers to enable licensing (and you have a bunch of codecs, not just G729).
Moises Silva Senior Software Engineer Sangoma Technologies Inc. | NEW 100 Renfrew Drive, Suite 100, Markham ON L3R 9R6 Canada t. 1 905 474 1990 x128 | e. moy@sangoma.com
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On 07/21/2010 09:39 AM, Fernando Romo wrote:
Well... Could Sangoma make a "Conversion program" to the ex howler customers?
Best Regards... Fernando "El Pop" Romo
I suppose they might, but I can't see any commercial incentive for them to do so. Sangoma now has the only card that does a decent number of channels, so they face no competition for larger users. For smaller users (i.e. potential Digium TC400B card buyers) transcoding on the main CPU makes more sense these days. The latest 8 core Xeons should be good for over a thousand channels of G.729A transcoding. Steve
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
I suppose they might, but I can't see any commercial incentive for them to do so. Sangoma now has the only card that does a decent number of channels, so they face no competition for larger users. For smaller users (i.e. potential Digium TC400B card buyers) transcoding on the main CPU makes more sense these days. The latest 8 core Xeons should be good for over a thousand channels of G.729A transcoding.
Steve
We should also consider the economics here... The flagship of the 7500 series (the X7560) is selling for upwards of $4000 in bulk (obviously this will go down over time). The 480 channel Sangoma card is around $2000. The 480 channel Sangoma card includes licenses and support for G.711, G.722, G.722.1, G.726, G.729AB, GSM-FR, GSM-EFR, AMR, AMR-WB, and iLBC. At $10/channel for a FreeSWITCH software license (assuming they don't offer bulk pricing) you'd pay around $14,000 for 1000 channels of G729 on that CPU (no other codecs). With Sangoma you'd pay $4,000 and get support for AMR and AMR-WB, which FreeSWITCH doesn't even offer software support for (that I know of). -- Kristian Kielhofner http://www.astlinux.org http://blog.krisk.org http://www.star2star.com http://www.submityoursip.com http://www.voalte.com
On 07/21/2010 11:25 PM, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 11:01 AM, Steve Underwood<steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
I suppose they might, but I can't see any commercial incentive for them to do so. Sangoma now has the only card that does a decent number of channels, so they face no competition for larger users. For smaller users (i.e. potential Digium TC400B card buyers) transcoding on the main CPU makes more sense these days. The latest 8 core Xeons should be good for over a thousand channels of G.729A transcoding.
Steve
We should also consider the economics here...
The flagship of the 7500 series (the X7560) is selling for upwards of $4000 in bulk (obviously this will go down over time). The 480 channel Sangoma card is around $2000. The 480 channel Sangoma card includes licenses and support for G.711, G.722, G.722.1, G.726, G.729AB, GSM-FR, GSM-EFR, AMR, AMR-WB, and iLBC.
Don't they have G.723.1 support? If not, that's a sad omission. Quite a few people need that, and only the Digium card has been able to offer it in a properly licenced manner.
At $10/channel for a FreeSWITCH software license (assuming they don't offer bulk pricing) you'd pay around $14,000 for 1000 channels of G729 on that CPU (no other codecs). With Sangoma you'd pay $4,000 and get support for AMR and AMR-WB, which FreeSWITCH doesn't even offer software support for (that I know of).
There is no practical way to licence the patents for GSM-EFR, AMR -NB or AMR-WB for small to medium volume use. Sangoma get their licencing through the silicon they use. Same for Digium with their G.729 + G.723.1 card licencing. Licencing through the silicon also gets G.729 patent licencing at much lower prices than the way Digium, Freeswitch and Howler need to licence the same patents for their purely software products. Its all rather messy, really. Steve
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
Don't they have G.723.1 support? If not, that's a sad omission. Quite a few people need that, and only the Digium card has been able to offer it in a properly licenced manner.
Sadly (and surprisingly) no. At least the specs don't claim it: http://www.sangoma.com/products/hardware_products/transcoding.html
There is no practical way to licence the patents for GSM-EFR, AMR -NB or AMR-WB for small to medium volume use. Sangoma get their licencing through the silicon they use. Same for Digium with their G.729 + G.723.1 card licencing. Licencing through the silicon also gets G.729 patent licencing at much lower prices than the way Digium, Freeswitch and Howler need to licence the same patents for their purely software products. Its all rather messy, really.
I figured this was due to some legal thing :). -- Kristian Kielhofner http://www.astlinux.org http://blog.krisk.org http://www.star2star.com http://www.submityoursip.com http://www.voalte.com
On 07/22/2010 12:55 AM, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Steve Underwood<steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
Don't they have G.723.1 support? If not, that's a sad omission. Quite a few people need that, and only the Digium card has been able to offer it in a properly licenced manner.
Sadly (and surprisingly) no. At least the specs don't claim it:
http://www.sangoma.com/products/hardware_products/transcoding.html
I'm told that in the next few weeks G.723.1 will be added to the mix on the Sangoma card.
There is no practical way to licence the patents for GSM-EFR, AMR -NB or AMR-WB for small to medium volume use. Sangoma get their licencing through the silicon they use. Same for Digium with their G.729 + G.723.1 card licencing. Licencing through the silicon also gets G.729 patent licencing at much lower prices than the way Digium, Freeswitch and Howler need to licence the same patents for their purely software products. Its all rather messy, really.
I figured this was due to some legal thing :).
Steve
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Steve Underwood <steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
On 07/22/2010 12:55 AM, Kristian Kielhofner wrote:
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 12:23 PM, Steve Underwood<steveu@coppice.org> wrote:
Don't they have G.723.1 support? If not, that's a sad omission. Quite a few people need that, and only the Digium card has been able to offer it in a properly licenced manner.
Sadly (and surprisingly) no. At least the specs don't claim it:
http://www.sangoma.com/products/hardware_products/transcoding.html
Some license issues were being sorted out for G723.1 with the Sangoma transcoding card. Those issues are now solved and G723.1 should be available in a couple of weeks. Moises Silva Senior Software Engineer Sangoma Technologies Inc. | NEW 100 Renfrew Drive, Suite 100, Markham ON L3R 9R6 Canada t. 1 905 474 1990 x128 | e. moy@sangoma.com
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:08 PM, Moises Silva <moises.silva@gmail.com> wrote:
Some license issues were being sorted out for G723.1 with the Sangoma transcoding card. Those issues are now solved and G723.1 should be available in a couple of weeks.
Awesome. What about existing cards (firmware upgrade)? What about the FreeSWITCH codec module you wrote? -- Kristian Kielhofner http://www.astlinux.org http://blog.krisk.org http://www.star2star.com http://www.submityoursip.com http://www.voalte.com
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:25 PM, Kristian Kielhofner <kris@kriskinc.com>wrote:
On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 3:08 PM, Moises Silva <moises.silva@gmail.com> wrote:
Awesome. What about existing cards (firmware upgrade)? What about the FreeSWITCH codec module you wrote?
I'll update the FreeSWITCH module as soon as we're ready for the releasing including G723.1 For existing customers, on a case by case basis we can update their firmware. Unfortunately we do not have generally available tools for firmware update yet as we do with our AFT hardware. Moises Silva Senior Software Engineer Sangoma Technologies Inc. | NEW 100 Renfrew Drive, Suite 100, Markham ON L3R 9R6 Canada t. 1 905 474 1990 x128 | e. moy@sangoma.com
Sorry to say the card is probably no longer of much use. Any existing howler users may be able to provide you with a working driver although I don't know if licences will continue to function. You might want to look at either Sangoma cards, or http://wiki.freeswitch.org/wiki/Mod_com_g729 -Steve On 21 July 2010 01:13, David Allen <david@virtutel.com.au> wrote:
Hi All,
I purchased a card from Howler Technologies a few months ago and I'm now only getting to setting it up. When I went to their website to download the drivers, I noticed that they have now ceased trading. Does anyone have any further information or how their products will be supported in the future with Freeswitch?
Thanks David
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good for our team! Le 21/07/2010 02:13, David Allen a écrit :
Hi All,
I purchased a card from Howler Technologies a few months ago and I'm now only getting to setting it up. When I went to their website to download the drivers, I noticed that they have now ceased trading. Does anyone have any further information or how their products will be supported in the future with Freeswitch?
Thanks David
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participants (9)
-
Brian West
-
David Allen
-
David Ponzone
-
Fernando Romo
-
Kristian Kielhofner
-
Meftah Tayeb
-
Moises Silva
-
Steve Underwood
-
Steven Ayre