VB revival through a SIP router?
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This forum seems to be dying now mainly because I haven't seen any activities for the past two months. I wondered if there is still some interests left from the VB owners to revive their VB to put in use as a SIP device. If you own a VB and would like to convert it as a SIP device, I believe you can (just keep reading).
Currently (on the week of 1/1/2006), CompUSA has this US Robotic 5461 WiFi Router/USB Printer Server on sale for $60 - $40 rebates = $40 (good only on 1/1/6 - 1/2/6). Apparently, rumours have it that the rebates have been extended to 1/8/6 and with additional $20 MMIR to make it FREE. See this post (http://forum.bsr-clan.de/ftopic4789.html). If you keep reading the posts on that thread, you will find that this device can run an OpenWRT firmware (based on linux-2.4 kernel). So, what is the big news if this 5461 router can run an OpenWRT firmware? If you notice this 5461 does come with a built-in of one USB v2 port, we sure can port the Fobbit VB old driver, attach some VB units and a card reader (more about this later on) through a USB HUB, port some SIP client software to support VB, and have the VB run off the 5461 router (no need for a computer). Assuming the rebates work, you will get your VB units to run off a router for free and be able to talk with other SIP devices. Once we get this working, we sure can add a transcoding module so that our VB can talk with other SIP devices on many different CoDecs.
I did mention of adding a card reader. This is used to expand the amount of memory required to hold some programs. The original 5461 only comes with a limited 2/8 MB flash/RAM memory. We need to add the USB kernel module within the 2MB flash space so that the firmware will see the USB card reader that can be used as a storage space to hold the programs. Also, there seems to be a trace of SMC space for additional RAM, see the picture here http://ph.groups.yahoo.com/group/usrobotics5461/photos/view/246c?b=1 (you may need to subscribe to the Yahoo group). With this additional 8MB RAM, the router will sure run/function better.
If you think this project is feasible, then go out to CompUSA to buy the US Robotic 5461 WiFi Router/USB Printer server (sku #:331849) and help to participate in the development.
I hope this will at least help all VB owners to a new start on this new year to reviving their VB units.
> This forum seems to be dying now mainly because
> I haven't seen any activities for the past two
> months.
It's most likely because the device is discontinued for a very long time, and better alternatives exist.
> If you own a VB and would like to convert it as
> a SIP device, I believe you can (just keep
> reading).
Investment of $40 into the router and then the expense of unmeasurable amount of dead-end coding does not justify saving mere $20. You can buy a brand new SIP hardphone starting at $60.
The reality is that the VB is a very primitive device. It can't do much, and it wasn't designed to do much in first place. It was just a ploy to have you signed up for an expensive phone service.
If anything, one could just develop an open-source SIP hardphone. There are plenty of soft phones, but they can't run on MCUs and DSPs. The design could be, for example, based on Cirrus Logic's 200 MHz ARM (costs $8 in qty. 1), and it would be a completely embedded target, with PCB and everything, and anyone could make one or buy a kit or buy an assembled phone. That would be not a dead end project, at least.
The TS-7250 board, as an example, would be sufficient to build a SIP phone already; but it can be further reduced in cost by removing all the unnecessary stuff from the board. See http://www.embeddedarm.com/epc/ts7250-spec-h.html
Investment of $50 - $50 rebates = Free after rebate (FAR) to buy a US Robotic 5461 125GMax WiFi Router + USB Printer Server is certainly not a bad idea, especially this router can be used to revive some old equipment, i.e. VoIPBlaster. Of course, YMMV.
So far, the most critical part is done where someone has already managed to get one of the open source codes firmware flashed and run on this usr5461 router. The next task is to get the USB module working within the 2MB flash so that it will recognize the USB port, external card reader, and additional HUB. Once this is done, the device can have lots of storage space to hold additional programs and drivers. Then, it is a matter of porting the Fobbit VB old (original) USB driver for linux-2.4.x kernel (written by David M. Stanhope). Meanwhile, work can be started to port any non-GUI SIP client program to drive the VB. When that happens, we can add the GUI stuff under the router webmenu through PHP programming. These all may sound a lot, but everything seems to have fallen into the right direction.
Besides all of these, this open source code firmware also supports an asterisk to run on the router as a PBX. An asterisk has the capability to perform a transcoding, i.e. G711/G729/iLBC <-> G723.1. Through this transcoding feature, our VBs will also be able to talk with other SIP devices across the globe using a better CoDec, i.e. G711, G729, etc., with less packets dropped and still preserves the integrity of the built-in old G723.1 CoDec on the hardware. So, we will be getting not only a router to run VBs, but also a digital PBX to connect our VB units and our other SIP devices attached to four switches on the router for free. I don't know about you, but I am so anxious to find out and get all my VBs + other SIP devices to work behind this router. BTW, the sales for this router (FAR) ends this Saturday (01/07/2006). So, hurry up if you want to be prepared.
You and I may have other better SIP devices for less; however, I sure will like to see my VB units getting used again and in a better environment (no need to fire up my computer to host my VBs.
What do you mean by participate in this project? Are you expecting others to develop the code based on your idea and you enjoy the fruit of it? If you were the developer then I would have expected you have come up with some beta codes by now. Com'on it's 2 years since your passionate pledge. My VBs are waiting for your project and all we got is hot air?
Wow ... unbelievable!!!! After two years of my initial post, I had completely forgotten about this until your response to my post. LOL
BTW, thank for your comments and I hope you will be able to make use of your VB, too. Right now, if you have a USR-5461 router, you can flash it with a DD-WRT firmware to play around with your VB. IIRC, my USR5461 router still runs on a stock firmware except with the printer server driver replaced with the VB driver from fobbit. The last time I played around with this was the time I posted my initial post here and my VB could be detected by the router, except I needed to find a stripped down SIP client softphone to fit in the small available flash memory of 100KB or less. If you know a simple SIP client that can fit within a 100KB space, let me know and I can revive this project again so everyone will benefit from it.
Hi, I'm trying to run a voip blaster to work as a SIP phone on Windows or Linux, so I have g723.1 licenses would not have problems with asterisk. I imagine that with fobbit drivers and a simple softphone should be able to do. You could you advance anything in this time?
sorry for my English, greetings from Argentina.
This is a long discontinued device and I doubt anyone is still using this device at the moment. You are better off to get yourself a Linksys PAP2T (beware of inexpensive counterfeit one sold from HongKong). If you really wanna play with VoIP, you may want to head to DSLR VoIP forum.