[ale] ISDN

[chris at zathras.shorty.com (Chris Farris)]

> I looked into this a bit earlier in the summer.   There is a company
> called ComStar Communications here in town which provides dedicated 24
> x 7 ISDN lines to commercial customers.  The twist for their ISDN
> services is that *ComStar* initiates the ISDN connection, not its
> customers.  Keep in mind that the tariff on >320 hours comes on
> *outgoing* calls only.  Since ComStar makes the call to your ISDN
> modem to initiate the connection, you never get hit with the excess
> charges.  (And I know they have Linux folks who monitor and post on the
> list. ) The ISP charges were around $250/month for a B channel, if I
> remember right.

That price seems competitive w/ other ISP's. And I don't believe the
Tariff exists on PRI lines (23 some odd B channels). Therefore no one is
paying the tariff.

I've worked w/ Comstar, and I know these guys are good.

> There is another company called America.Net which offers ISDN on demand
> for $175/mo.  It requires that you buy an Ascend router, and while you 
> don't have dedicated access, they claim that connection is almost

The routers do bring up the connection quick. They are a bit overpriced
IMHO. I've used america.net and had some real problems, but that was
over a year ago.

As for hardware I'd go w/ the Spellcaster DataCommute ISDN card. I use
it and love it. Brings up the connection very fast, and the two B
channels are independent.

Chris

-- 
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