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An analog telephone adapter (ATA) or FXS gateway is a device for connecting traditional analog telephones, fax machines, and similar customer-premises devices to a digital telephone system or a
An analog telephone adapter (ATA) or FXS gateway is a device for connecting traditional analog telephones, fax machines, and similar customer-premises devices to a digital telephone system or a voice over IP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
telephone network.
An ATA is often built into a small enclosure with an internal or external power adapter, an Ethernet
Ethernet ( ) is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 198 ...
port, and one or more foreign exchange station In modern day usage, "foreign exchange office" (FXO) and "foreign exchange station" (FXS) refer to the different ends of a telephone line in the context of voice over IP (VoIP) systems and its interconnection with analog telephony equipment. The FX ...
(FXS) telephone ports. Such devices may also have a foreign exchange office In modern day usage, "foreign exchange office" (FXO) and "foreign exchange station" (FXS) refer to the different ends of a telephone line in the context of voice over IP (VoIP) systems and its interconnection with analog telephony equipment. The FX ...
(FXO) interface for providing alternative access to traditional landline telephone service.
The ATA provides dial tone, ringing generator, DC power, caller ID data and other standard telephone line signaling
Line signaling is a class of telecommunications signaling protocols. Line signaling is responsible for off-hook, ringing signal, answer, ground start, on-hook unidirectional supervision messaging in each direction from calling party to called ...
(known collectively as BORSCHT
Borscht () is a sour soup, made with meat stock, vegetables and seasonings, common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word ''borscht'' is most often associated with the soup's variant of Ukrainian origin, made with red b ...
) to the telephone connected to a modular jack.
The digital interface of the ATA typically consists of an Ethernet port to connect to an Internet Protocol (IP) network, but may also be a USB port for connecting the device to a personal computer.
Using such an ATA, it is possible to connect a conventional telephone to a remote VoIP server. The ATA communicates with the server using a protocol such as H.323, SIP, MGCP, SCCP or IAX, and encodes and decodes the voice signal using a voice codec such as G.711
G.711 is a narrowband audio codec originally designed for use in telephony that provides toll-quality audio at 64 kbit/s. It is an ITU-T standard (Recommendation) for audio encoding, titled Pulse code modulation (PCM) of voice frequencies ...
, G.729, GSM, or iLBC
Internet Low Bitrate Codec (iLBC) is a royalty-free narrowband speech audio coding format and an open-source reference implementation (codec), developed by Global IP Solutions (GIPS) formerly Global IP Sound (acquired by Google Inc in 2011). It w ...
. Since the ATA communicates directly with the VoIP server, it does not require a personal computer or any software such as a softphone
A softphone is a software program for making telephone calls over the Internet using a general purpose computer rather than dedicated hardware. The softphone can be installed on a piece of equipment such as a desktop, mobile device, or other compu ...
. It uses approximately 3 to 5 watts of electricity, depending on the model and brand.
Often an ATA is connected between an IP network
The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suite are ...
(such as a broadband connection) and the existing telephone wiring of the residence through one of the jacks to provide public switched telephone network (PSTN) access.
See also
*Telephone VoIP adapter
A telephone VoIP adapter (TVA), also called digital telephone adapter, is a device that interfaces digital private branch exchange (PBX) telephone sets to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network, using, for example, the Session Initiation Pro ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Analog Telephony Adapter VoIP hardware Telephony equipment