Cheap PRI to SIP box

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VanFanel89

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Apr 21, 2004
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Folks,

We are planning on moving our IP PBX from a dedicated bare metal box to a virtualized environment. We have a PRI trunk that is currently handled by a PCI PRI card. The new box will not have room for an addon so I need to find an external version of the PCI card...

All I am finding are $1K+ digium boxes which are way out of our budget.


Any recommendations?

Thanks!

Cliffs: need an external PRI -> SIP gateway/converter.
 
well $1000 is about right for anything that interfaces with a PRI...

i pay $815 for the single port sangomas we use...

do you have the ability to passthrough USB? there is the xorcom astribank which i've heard good things about...

also sangoma makes the vega, a PRI network gateway... both are going to be ~$1k....

otherwise i've heard of people figuring out how to repurpose old cisco gear w/ T1 cards but that's way over my head... and compared to our simple PCI cards wayyyy more complicated... but seems to be a really cheap way to do it...
 
What PBX are you using? Asterisk, or...? As goodcooper said, under $1k for anything T1/PRI isn't going to happen unless it's used/refurbed.

I've had great success with Xorcom USB channel banks for Asterisk and Patton E1/T1 gateways for 3CX.
 
http://www.voiplink.com/sbc-gateway...e-pri-port-usb-asterisk-ready-xr0047-new.html

that's really not bad... i was about to buy another one of those sangoma pci cards for $815... maybe i'll try one of these instead... that way if we want to virtualize later it would be a bit easier... although these days with VT-d it's easy enough to passthrough pcie cards... this is even easier/cheaper...

one thing i really havn't understood is the need for echo cancelation...

i don't get why that may be needed... i'm using them for TWC PRI lines... which is a shame because they're feeding their PRI box with sip trunks, and here i am paying a bunch of money going the other way....
 
I feel your pain with Comcast PRIs here. Double conversion.

The Xorcoms have been great because ALL of the configuration is kept in Asterisk, and uploaded to the device on every boot as well as firmware. This way EVERY device can be a cold spare. No preconfig time in the event of a replacement.
 
Nate7311 said:
I feel your pain with Comcast PRIs here. Double conversion.

The Xorcoms have been great because ALL of the configuration is kept in Asterisk, and uploaded to the device on every boot as well as firmware. This way EVERY device can be a cold spare. No preconfig time in the event of a replacement.
Click to expand...

TWC is starting to offer SIP trunks now... it's basically the same as the PRI i'm being told... not actually "bring your own bandwidth" i guess via the fiber i'm running, you get a dedicated port, i don't know exactly how it works but i'm actually in the middle of a conversation with my sales guy right now... i'mi assuming i bring it in via a secondary nic on the PBX or something...
 
Interesting... I may have to open a dialog with my Comcast rep again. The last time I'd checked, they JUST started offering SIP trunking, but the pricing was easily double the $350/PRI pricing I'm getting now... That got a Whiskey Tango Foxtrot response from me!
 
twc charges 345 for the PRI, and the sip trunks are $15 a piece... so identical pricing...
 
If it were me, I'd just run a small asterisk box. Intel Atom? and use the PRI card you already have.

This is what we do at $TELECOMDAYJOB. Same setup just reversed for feeding a customer a PRI handoff.
 
NickOlsen8390 said:
If it were me, I'd just run a small asterisk box. Intel Atom? and use the PRI card you already have.

This is what we do at $TELECOMDAYJOB. Same setup just reversed for feeding a customer a PRI handoff.
Click to expand...

yea, you basically just need to ask yourself whether spending the ~$1k on equipment is worth it to you to virtualize...
 
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