Digium the Asterisk company announces a new family of telephony interface cards based on the PCI Express (PCIe) format. PCIe is fast becoming the dominant form factor in expansion cards for server, workstation and desktop systems because it offers numerous performance benefits over traditional PCI and PCI Extended interface formats. Digium is rolling out PCIe cards across its full product family and will continue to support interface cards based on the PCI and PCI Extended formats.

Digium is the creator and driving force behind Asterisk, the open source voice communications software deployed by more than two million servers and serving well over 10 million people today. The company’s hardware, including the new PCIe cards, is designed to help customers realize the full power and flexibility of Asterisk by meeting precise requirements for scalability; network connectivity; and support for IP, traditional analog or mixed telephony lines.

“PCI Express is quickly becoming the industry preference for server and workstation interfaces for expansion cards,” said Bill Miller, vice president of product management and marketing at Digium. “Digium’s goal in offering a full line of PCIe cards, and in continuing to support PCI and PCI Extended formats, is to offer our customers and partners the widest array of choices in how they use and deploy Asterisk solutions.”

Digium’s four- and two-port digital T1 and E1 PCIe interface cards, the TE420 and TE220, eliminate voltage and slot considerations associated with standard PCI cards. They are available immediately from the company and its authorized resellers. The TE420 will retail for $1,195 USD and the TE220 for $695 USD. Both are compatible with Digium’s existing VPMOCT series of hardware echo cancellation modules. Digium is scheduled to release analog and other cards for PCI Express in Q2 and Q3 2007.