Hi Byron,
Thanks, I'll happily answer questions that I think I can answer.
Basically the Tempest uses 4 boards for the telephony side when working on a T1. One is a line-interface card that you would plug the T1 wire into, and 3 (for T1, 4 for E1) DSP cards, each with 8 ports worth of DSP power (a T1 is 24 ports, an E1 is 32 ports). These cards are connected by an MVIP bus and together send/receive voice data to/from the PSTN, do the vocoding etc. They also have to have a datacom card to connect to the IP side. This card is connected to the DSP cards by some proprietary method that I haven't been able to find out but my guess is that it is some sort of optical interface. So, you have 3 or 4 DSP cards, 1 line interface card and 1 datacom card to do 1 T1 or 1 E1 worth of ports. Most industrial chassis have about 16 slots you can plug the cards into so this gives you 3-4 Ts in a chassis.
I will use NMSS as a counter example since I am most familiar with NMSS, please don't go out and buy NMSS stock just because I talk about it. NMSS has a T1/E1 card that has the DSP power, and the line-interface for a T1/E1 all on one card. So basically one NMSS T1/E1 board does what it takes FTEL 4 boards to do and so NMSS can create a lot denser port count that FTEL can with their current technology. It is true that FTEL will most probably have better boards someday but NMSS is basically two generations ahead right now and will also be continuing to develop higher density boards. The same applies to Diabolic (err, Dialogic) which is a competitor for NMSS and the Goliath to NMSS' David in the PC based CTI industry. Inter-Tel uses NMSS hardware under their software. The voice quality of the Inter-Tel gateway is comparable to the FTEL gateway, but can support higher densities.
Again, in my opinion, FTEL is meant for smaller systems and should do fine. I wouldn't run out and sell my stock just yet, but I also don't think it will be the market leader anytime soon. It'll do fine, make money, and hopefully the people at FTEL are having fun.
-Atin |
