I'm sold!
If you are curious how ISDN ranks up against ADSL and Cablemodems
in terms of price, speed, etc.. check out my
Cablemodems page for a cool comparison page.
AO/DI: Always On/Dynamic ISDN:
Communicating over the existing D-channel, now users can have a
9600 BAUD permanent connection to the Internet without using a
B-channel. Once higher speed is needed, AO/DO will bring up additional
B-channels as needed! Check it out!
Ascend upgrades the P50/75!
Ascend has silently upgraded their newest Pipeline50 and 75 units with
more FLASH and DRAM to support future feature sets like AO/DI, etc. So
if you are looking into buying a P50/75, make sure you buy a unit with
a serial number greater than 722XXXX.
See Ascend's FAQ
page for more details about this.
Gandalf Corporation's Remote Access division is bought by Mitel. The
fate of Gandalf's telephony division is uncertain.
After slow sales with their various product lines and refusal from the
Canadian government to extend their credit line,
Gandalf Corporation filed for
Chapter 11 protection to try and both restructure the company to return
to profitability. Mitel Corporation has since bought the remote access
division and Decision1 has bought all of the support contracts for
existing Gandalf customers.
Since Mitel has bought Gandalf, I have not seen or heard anything about any products from them. Gandalf products that are still supported include:
Expressway RLAN
ExpressStack
5240
5242
5232
5250
5240
Other Mitel (Gandalf) News:
They plan on integrating xDSL and cable modem technology into the
5232.
They plan on integrating xDSL technology into the 5250.
The new 9002 controller will have two 10/100 Ethernet ports.
The new 9002 controller will access 3 backplanes. The third is installed
with the new card. It will have PCI slots for FR and ATM cards to be
designed by Gandalf. There will be an upgrade which will be the difference
in cost between the 900 and the 9002.
The 9002 will be able to support 240 connections per controller.
12-1 compression is in the works.
They have worked harder on TFTP upgrades of remote boxes. If the
upgrade fails, the box reverts to the old code.
They are working on a quad T1/PRI solution.
They have re-signed their contracts for the XpressConnect line
resellers. Ingram Micro is one that comes to mind.
They are negotiating with Quest to resell Xpressway and XpressStack.
Jump to
Gandalf's Press Releases for more information
Traffic Filtering:
Is your ISDN line staying up too long or comes up for 'no reason'? If so,
check out my notes on traffic filtering to fix this problem.
Recent reviews of ISDN T/A and Router products:
PC
Magazine: Check out their Feb. 4th, 1997 review of (18) ISDN
T/As
C|Net:
Check out their May 14th, 1997 review of (22) ISDN T/As
[New ISDN products are being added to this list as I have time so check back often. If you have a question about a product not listed here, drop me an e-mail]
3Com:
The The Impact IQ ISDN
T/A
Adtran:
Adtran's family of ISDN TAs and
routers
Ascend:
The Ascend Pipleline
family of external ISDN bridge/routers
The Ascend Max4004 BRI/PRI/Modem Remote Access server [No posted
info yet.. e-mail if you have any specific Questions]
Cisco:
The Cisco 1004 ISDN router [No posted info yet.. e-mail if you have
any specific Questions]
The Cisco AS5200 and AS5300 BRI/PRI/Modem Remote Access server [No posted
info yet.. e-mail if you have any specific Questions]
Digiboard:
The
DigiBoard Datafire: internal IBM PC ISDN network card
FlowPoint:
The FlowPoint 100 [No posted info yet.. e-mail if you have any specific
Questions]
Gandalf:
The Gandalf 5242i
Telecommuter Ethernet bridge and Edge Router
The Gandalf
Xpressway/Stack RLAN BRI/PRI/Modem remote access server
Check out my FAQ on the older
5242 Edge Router setup
Check out John Dwyer's excellent
general Gandalf FAQ
Motorola:
The Motorola Bit Surfr Pro
external ISDN T/A
Shiva:
The Shiva AccessSwitch BRI/PRI/Modem Remote Access server [No posted
info yet.. e-mail if you have any specific Questions]
The Shiva AccessPort BRI router [No posted info yet.. e-mail if
you have any specific Questions]
USR:
The US Robotics Sporster 128
internal IBM PC ISDN network card.
3/18/97
Information on Linux drivers
for the USR Sportster 128k ISDN card
The Courier I-modem [No posted info yet.. e-mail if you have any
specific Questions]
The USR TCM16 PRI/BRI/Modem Remote Access server [No posted info
yet.. e-mail if you have any specific Questions]
Zyxel:
The Zyxel Prestige 100/128
ISDN routers
The Zyxel OmniTA 128
Misc vendors:
A quick intro to the features and price of the
Motorola Vanguard and
Ascend ISDN units
Linux:
ISDN4Linux: This is a group of programmers that are
writing drivers for the
HiSAX Siemens chipset [Teles, ELSA, among others]
Information on Linux
drivers for the USR Sportster 128k ISDN card
Microsoft Windows (95/NT)
All of the above ISDN vendors support Microsoft's product line
ISDN Terminal Adapters vs. Routers
Multiple IP connections (dynamic, NAT/MASQ, and static addresses)
from your ISP
Serial ports (16650, 16750, +):
High Speed / High buffered
Synchronous vs. Asynchronous serial interfaces
Make sure you check out my notes on PPP, ML/PPP, and IP stack
performance enhancements for DOS, Windows, and Linux on my
Remote Access page.
What is ISDN? What are the technical details about ISDN? Check
out Pacific Bell's
ISDN handbook!.
Having problems with your ISDN BRI or PRI connections? Check
out my:
ISDN Provisioning
notes for questions to ask your local phone company's support
line.
ISDN Cause Codes
to decode what these cryptic ISDN errors really mean.
Need some help or tech support for your ISDN T/A, Router, or some help
with setting up your operating system? Check out
.
They have all kinds of helpful info here.
Dan Kegel's master
ISDN page to almost ALL ISDN equipment on the planet.
[HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!]
Need more help? Need some specific technical answers? Developing a
new ISDN product? Check out the FAQs, RFCs, and other excellent ISDN sites:
Check out the Comp.dcom.isdn FAQs: The ultimate (though a little out
of date but it's the most recent copy... Honest!) information source!!
Check out
Jayaprakash's Masters project: He will be designing, building, and
coding for a passive ISDN T/A. I hope that he releases his Q.921/Q.931 code
to the Linux community to better support other T/As like the USR Sportster128K,
etc. Check it out.. very detailed!
Programming ISDN? Looking for specific information on q.931,
etc? Check out a few of these links:
AMD guides, white papers, and more!
Note: A lot more information is freely available (application notes, etc)
from AMD's documentation department. Give them a call!
All of the
ITU Q.921 and Q.931 recommendations online
Q.921 and Q.931 Implementation from SunShine.
Last Updated: 07/19/98