Digital Lines

[surfiec1]

Dear Experts,

We are a small education centre in the outbacks of Northern Cyprus. We wish to set-up a server for our students to dial into from their homes and be able to receive speeds of 56k. We understand that a digital line is required from the telephone exchange to the server. What I would like to know is, what do I use to connect this digital line on to the server? I have searched the internet but there is so much conflicting information and the local telco know less than us!

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Dr. Terry R. Thomas
Administrator
SURF Internet Education Centre.

 

[pansophic]

You can do this with an ISDN BRI line. Many companies make Terminal Adapters (frequently mis-named ISDN modems) that will interface directly to your server. 3Com/USR have a product called a Courier Imodem that will fit the bill. But for my money, I'd rather have an Lucent (formerly Ascend) Pipeline 50. It is a small router with an ISDN interface on one side, and an ethernet interface on the other. It supplies the PPP server and is relatively easy to configure.

For that matter, you can get a small cisco router with an ISDN BRI interface and do the same thing. If you already have a cisco router installed at your site, you may be able to add another WAN interface for the BRI.

If you will be having lots of users simultaneously dialed in, Lucent still makes the Max product (I believe) that takes a T-1 (or E-1) in on one side and an ethernet in on the other. Cisco makes the AS5XXX series of products for the same purpose.

Good luck!
pansophic