Fax Quality and Reliability on T1/E1, BRI & Analog Phone Systems
Until now, users of Asterisk® and other PC-based systems with T1/E1 or BRI connections needed a separate external analog line at an additional cost if they wanted reliable fax service. Fax machines connected to a PBX using T1/E1 or BRI connections would run inconsistently at best because the analog interface supporting the fax machine were not synchronized with the PSTN timing.
Sangoma's latest AFT hardware & firmware revisions include an option for the analog card to receive its clocking from a T1/E1 or BRI card via a simple two-wire jumper cable.
- Synchronization Cable
- Hardware Requirements
- Firmware Requirements
- Driver Requirements
- Configuration Requirements
Synchronization Cable
Standard Two Pin Jumper cable, also available from Sangoma.
Install the cable on to the board jumpers RED cable uppermost both sides as shown in the picture.
Hardware Requirements
List of currently supported hardware:
AFT A101/2/4/8dm: All AFT T1/E1 cards with HW Echo Cancellation
- hardware echo canceler is mandatory
AFT A500d: BRI card
- If the card is being used as a clocking source then hardware echo canceler is mandatory
- If the card is receiving the clock then the hardware echo canceler is NOT mandatory
AFT A200: Quad Port Analog FXO/FXS Card, (upto to 24 ports)
- hardware echo canceler is optional for analog cards
AFT A400: 12 Port Analog FXO/FXS Card, (upto 24 ports)
- hardware echo canceler is optional for analog cards
Please note that AFT A101/2/4/8 and A200/400 cards that were shipped before June 1st, 2007 do not support this feature and are not field upgradeable!
This feature is only supported on Maxim based T1/E1 AFT cards (AFT A101dm/A102dm/A104dm/A108dm).
Firmware Requirements
The minimum AFT hardware firmware requirements that support clock synchronization.
AFT A101dm --- V31
AFT A102dm --- V31
AFT A104dm --- V31
AFT A108dm --- V31
AFT A200 --- V10
AFT A400 --- V10
AFT A500 --- V31
Latest Firmware Download
Driver Requirements
Latest Stable and Beta releases support the external clock sync feature.
You can download the wanpipe drivers here:
Latest stable voice & data drivers (Linux) ------------- Download Stable Here
Support: T1/E1/Analog
Latest beta voice & data drivers (Linux) --------------- Download Beta Here
Support: T1/E1/Analog/BRI
Latest voice & data drivers (FreeBSD) --------------- Download Beta Here
Configuration
All T1/E1 & BRI cards supporting this feature will automatically provide the clock, and therefore no additional configuration is necessary.
The latest STABLE and BETA wanpipe releases have updated configuration utilities (wancfg and wancfg_zaptel) to configure AFT Analog devices for external clock sync.
The Analog Cards must be configure with RM_NETWORK_SYNC option. This option configures the Analog card to accept the clock from the jumper cable.
If the clock is not present, the analog card will not start!
AFT T1/E1 + Analog Fax
AFT A500 + Analog Fax
Manual Configuration
In the configuration files for Analog cards only, please add RM_NETWORK_SYNC = YES as follows:
#================================================
# WANPIPE2 Configuration File
#================================================
#
# Date: Tue Apr 24 16:59:04 EDT 2007
#
# Note: This file was generated automatically
# by /usr/sbin/wancfg program.
#
# If you want to edit this file, it is
# recommended that you use wancfg program
# to do so.
#================================================
# Sangoma Technologies Inc.
#================================================
[devices]
wanpipe2 = WAN_AFT_ANALOG, Comment
[interfaces]
w2g1 = wanpipe2, , TDM_VOICE, Comment
[wanpipe2]
CARD_TYPE = AFT
S514CPU = A
CommPort = PRI
AUTO_PCISLOT = NO
PCISLOT = 9
PCIBUS = 1
FE_MEDIA = FXO/FXS
TDMV_LAW = MULAW
TDMV_OPERMODE = FCC
RM_NETWORK_SYNC = YES
MTU = 1500
UDPPORT = 9000
TTL = 255
IGNORE_FRONT_END = NO
TDMV_SPAN = 2
[w2g1]
ACTIVE_CH = ALL
TDMV_ECHO_OFF = NO
TDMV_HWEC = NO
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