Xorcom T1 To PRI

Home » Asterisk Users » Xorcom T1 To PRI
Asterisk Users 4 Comments

Hi,

I have a client that has a 24 channel voice T1 that I have been using e&m signalling over for a number of years. The local telco finally got an ISDN switch and wants to move them to PRI. I didn’t see this as a big problem – I’ve done a few others on this particular Caribbean island without issues, but this would be the first time with a Xorcom unit involved.

We tried to do it tonight and failed. I suspect there is an issue at their central office where they patched the line away from an old dms-100 and to the new ISDN switch – the tech said he couldn’t see anything at the line layer, though I showed no alarms. Regardless, something odd happened that I am hoping for some advice on. We reverted to the T1 and will try again next week.

The odd bit is this – lsdahdi showed all 24 channels as “T1” instead of
“PRI”. The output of lsdahdi at another site where I had already done this conversion (which uses a Sangoma card) looks like this:

root@astsouth:/etc/dahdi# lsdahdi
### Span 1: WPT1/0 “wanpipe1 card 0” (MASTER) ESF/B8ZS
1 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
2 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
3 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
4 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
5 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
6 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
7 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
8 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
9 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
10 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
11 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
12 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
13 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
14 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
15 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
16 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
17 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
18 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
19 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
20 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
21 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
22 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
23 PRI Clear (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC – INACTIVE)
24 PRI Hardware-assisted HDLC (In use) (EC: WANPIPE_HWEC –
INACTIVE)

Bah, the scrollback has already erased the output from the box in question, but essentially it showed the same as above with “T1” in the second column for all channels instead of “PRI”.

They both had identical system.conf, which looks like this:

loadzone=us defaultzone=us span=1,1,0,esf,b8zs bchan=1-23
echocanceller=mg2,1-23
hardhdlc$

In fact the *only* things I changed from the old system.conf tonight was swapping “e&m=1-24” for “bchan=1-23” and adding the “hardhdlc$”. The old (now functioning) system.conf looks like this:

# Span 1: XBUS-00/XPD-00 “Xorcom XPD [usb:X1067719].1: T1” (MASTER)
B8ZS/ESF RED
loadzone = us defaultzone = us span=1,1,0,esf,b8zs e&m=1-24
echocanceller=mg2,1-24

So what about system.conf would cause lsdahdi to show “T1” instead of
“PRI” in column two? Just trying to head off any additional problems once they get their patching sorted out.

Thanks,

j

4 thoughts on - Xorcom T1 To PRI

  • The issue is probably with the wanpipe configuration and not with DAHDI
    or Asterisk. Run the wanpipe_cfg script again and make sure you change all necessary settings from E&M to ISDN PRI.


    Telecomunicaciones Abiertas de México S.A. de C.V. Carlos Chávez dCAP #1349
    +52 (55)9116-91161

  • [snip]

    The site with the Sangoma (wanpipe) card is working as expected as a PRI. The site that I couldn’t switch tonight uses a Xorcom box – the only one I have worked on. Is there also something about Xorcom config that needs to change to make it realize it is a PRI and not a T1? I
    don’t recall anything like that in the installation, but that was some time ago.

    Thanks,

    j

  • Hi,

    This seems to be an issue of terminology,

    Right. For Sangoma cards, lsdahdi can’t tell if the port is E1 or T1 and thus calls it “PRI”. Note that “PRI” here is a poor name that refers to the port type itself and not to the signalling in it (which don’t have to be ISDN).

    Suggestions? Patches?

  • Ah, well that explains it, and I don’t need to worry that I have missed some config. Might I suggest that lsdahdi show “E1/T1” if the actual type cannot be determined due to hardware limitations?

    Cheers,

    j