Hello all, I have been trying to evaluate whether our next IVR project should be on Windows+Dialogic or Asterisk+Digium.
We will be connecting behind a Nortel M1 PBX. In terms of the hardware, it seems that for Asterisk all I need is something like the relatively inexpensive (<$1,000) Digium T1 card. Whereas for Windows, I would need a Dialogic card with T1 AND DSP (about $5,000 as far as I can tell)
It seems to be a no brainer - Asterisk wins.
The IVR functionality we need is
play voice file
detect DTMF (very reliably)
Originate call
Record voice file
My question is, can the DSP functionality that is on the Dialogic card, really be done by the host machine CPU (3GHz, 1GB in standard servers these days) ?
I am sure it can do it for some channels, but can it do it for 24 ? Can it do it comfortably for 8 channels ?
[quote=âpmctiernanâ]Hello all, I have been trying to evaluate whether our next IVR project should be on Windows+Dialogic or Asterisk+Digium.
My question is, can the DSP functionality that is on the Dialogic card, really be done by the host machine CPU (3GHz, 1GB in standard servers these days) ?
I am sure it can do it for some channels, but can it do it for 24 ? Can it do it comfortably for 8 channels ?
[/quote]
The DSP functionality can definitely NOT be done by the host machine.
The host processing cannot approach a DSP, even a single channel.
I have tried a super-duper Dell server, running Asterisk alone, plus a Cisco gigabit switch dedicated to the IVR server, which only has to asnwer ONE test call. The results? The quality of the voice sucks.
The top item in my wish list is that Asterisk had full support for the standard board in computer telephony (i.e., Dialogic).
[quote=âpmctiernanâ]Hello all, I have been trying to evaluate whether our next IVR project should be on Windows+Dialogic or Asterisk+Digium.
[/quote]
You should also consider Asterisk+Dialogic. The only caveat is that you wonât be able to use legacy Dialogic boards. Only the newer JCT boards are supported by Asterisk. Those boards have a dual CPU, one for low-level processing, and the other for a high level type of programming and host âon-loadingâ (opposite of âoff-loadingâ), similar to the Zapata approach.
Plus, the quality of Dialogic boards is legendary.
We just had the same problem here: Buy or not buy Dialogic.
Answer: By Digium boards and run under Asterisk
We are very happy with ou 4 E1 (equivalent to T1). We use it to connect to PSTN trhu ISDN. Ou applications run IVR and conferencing up to 120 channels.
No problem at all. It will do what you need and much more and very simple to set up.
