Is it possible to have a routerboard to act as an ATA gateway?

The rj11 port of an USB modem can let me make VOIP calls?

Is there a minipci solution for this?


Openvox card are very expensive, and I can't attach the RB to an external ATA gateway, any other idea?

MiniPCI solutions do exist:

http://www.openvox.cn/en/products/fxofx ... a400m.html

However, RouterOS has no voice gatewaying capabilities built into it. You can run Asterisk inside of MetaROUTER, but there is currently no way to expose raw PCI devices to the MetaROUTER, so you couldn't use this card with Asterisk running inside of MetaROUTER anyway. (This would be a hard problem to solve on a RouterBOARD, too; on Intel/x86 systems, direct PCI bus access was only recently made available to virtual machines -- for example, VMware VMDirectPath -- but these solutions depend on explicit chipset support, such as Intel Directed I/O or AMD IOMMU, and this is generally only available on higher-end server chipsets at this time.)

I suppose you could remove RouterOS and install a different Linux distribution + Asterisk "bare metal". But losing RouterOS is a huge sacrifice to make. There are relatively cheap 2-port ATAs out there as it is, so it makes little sense to buy a RouterBOARD, buy an expensive MiniPCI FXO card, remove RouterOS, install custom Linux, etc. rather than just buy a dedicated ATA, which would be as cheap if not cheaper.

Asterisk inside of MetaROUTER makes for an awesome IP-only SIP switch platform, however.

-- Nathan

MiniPCI solutions do exist:

http://www.openvox.cn/en/products/fxofx ... a400m.html

yes but they are very expensive, the one I need retails for 200$.

I can buy the Linksys PAP2T for 47$, and it retails for 62.5$ around Europe

I remember buying around 2000 a 56k PSTN Modem for around 60$ (cheap back then), with builtin VOIP capability, allowing me to connect the RJ-11 of my phone to it.

Am I remembering something wrong? Or is it possible to use a USB modem to connect your phone? and a MiniPCI one?

Or maybe there is some kind of magical usb device which does what I need...

There are relatively cheap 2-port ATAs out there as it is, so it makes little sense to buy a RouterBOARD, buy an expensive MiniPCI FXO card, remove RouterOS, install custom Linux, etc. rather than just buy a dedicated ATA, which would be as cheap if not cheaper.

Overall I totally agree, and in fact an external ATA device is my main option now, anyhow I can't have 2 power cords at my location at the office, and this rule is beyond my authority (Fire Hazard rules).

On the other hand I wonder why minipci FXO cards are so expensive? maybe they do something I dont actually need? maybe they have a dedicated processor which is overkill for my need? Maybe I could achieve what I need with a cheaper alternative solution?