Viable FreeBSD Network Access Server projects...?

[Martes Wigglesworth]

Good lord.  Thanks for all the information.  I was thinking of using
dedicated hardware, and it almost seems that it would be much simpler to
just purchase a Total Control, AS5400, or other PRI appliance, and see
how it works, then attempt my project, as a side experiment.  I am good
with the theories, however, I have yet to actually see how to gateway
the digital channelized lines, to the dialup analog lines.  Or Would the
Channelized T1 simply be used as call-in lines to my data center, then I
just have the RAS/NAS connect to the rest of my backbone, via the Radius
server (FreeRadius on FreeBSD/OpenBSD) then to my other network
resources?  I still don't quite have a good picture of why you would
need an analog phone line, when you already have channelized service, to
supply the 56K 64kbit/s pipe.  Or am I just missunderstanding what has
been said?  

Has anyone considered using Asterisk for some sort of telephony gateway
solution to this type of topology?  I know you can do VOIP, however that
is much more advanced than what I am currently attempting to grasp.  

Also, are there any PRI/Analog/Channelized modem pool resources that
anyone can point me to?  I have been able to locate a bit of
information, however, no one ever actually discloses how the line
provisioning can actually be setup.

Thanks a bunch, for the information, Ian.
-- 
Respectfully,


M.G.W.

System:
PCChips K7SOM MB 
AMD K7 Pro 1800 
256MB RAM
40GB HD
10/100 NIC
FreeBSD-5.2.1-RELEASE