I know ISDN isn't really broadband......

.... but the governement think so!

Anyway, as I've been turned for ASDL, I'm looking at stuff like satellite
and (in particular) ISDN.

I remember looking at ISDN years ago and it was REALLY expensive, but I know
it's a lot better now.

I just want some basic facts on availability, setup cost, rental, supported
ISPs etc. I'm also confused by all that stuff with call allowances and the
dual channel thing (128k). I've seen a few ISPs offer 128k unmetered, but
for restricted hours. It's usually half the time allotted for 64k, so I'm
guessing I could change between 64k/128k 'at the flick of a switch' and back
again on a whim?

I've even seen something on 256k. How's that work, FOUR channels or
something?

The problem is that I don't pay the phone bill in my house, and my parents
have the BT light-user scheme which I don't want to scupper. Broadband
wouldn't have mattered to them, but I'm thinking ISDN might...

"As mellow as a horse" <richie42@***xxxSPAMOFFxxxx**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote in
message news:bqohnt$dt6$(E-Mail Removed)...
> The problem is that I don't pay the phone bill in my house, and my parents
> have the BT light-user scheme which I don't want to scupper. Broadband
> wouldn't have mattered to them, but I'm thinking ISDN might...

Have a look at Home Highway and Midband on BT's web site.

http://www.bt.com/homehighway/
http://www.bt.com/btmidband

However, both ISDN/Home Highway and ADSL cannot be used with the BT light
user scheme.

Regards
Sunil

As mellow as a horse wrote:

> ... but the governement think so!

Well they define on the phone as "online" as well - it was the only way
they were going to meet their goal of "all govt services to be online by
2005") so go figure ;-)

> Anyway, as I've been turned for ASDL, I'm looking at stuff like satellite
> and (in particular) ISDN.
>
> I remember looking at ISDN years ago and it was REALLY expensive, but I know
> it's a lot better now.

Better yes - but not exactly cheap.

> I just want some basic facts on availability, setup cost, rental, supported
> ISPs etc. I'm also confused by all that stuff with call allowances and the

Usually more "available" than ADSL in that you don't need your exchange
upgraded first. However there are still line length limitations.

Most ISPs will support it. Many will let you use it with Surftime to get
unmetered connectivity (although usually only 64K with surftime)

Install is probably in the order of 74 quid. Then its normally something
like 25/month. Minimum 12 month contract.

If you need to get surftime as well then that will also cost.

You used to get a certain amount of call time included in the various
highway(robbery) packages... a while ago the reduced the cost of the
packages but at the same time cut the bundled call allowance. Hence the
current home package only includes a small allowance.

It may be cheaper to look at BTs "midband" repackaging of ISDN - that
may be more cost effective.

> dual channel thing (128k). I've seen a few ISPs offer 128k unmetered, but
> for restricted hours. It's usually half the time allotted for 64k, so I'm
> guessing I could change between 64k/128k 'at the flick of a switch' and back
> again on a whim?

Mostly. To get 128K you need to "bond" both of the 64K channels into one
logical connection. This effectively places two phone calls at once.
Some ISPs support "Bandwidth Allocation on Demand" which means if you
have a a suitable router on a LAN you can set it to bring up the second
channel when the first one is loaded above a certain percentage for a
certain time. If you don't have a router and are using a ISDN PCI card
then you may need to drop a connection and dial another to get a bonded
link.

> I've even seen something on 256k. How's that work, FOUR channels or
> something?

Spose... there are various levels of ISDN that add more 64K channels
over and above the two you get with home/business highway.

(Even things like the so called T1 link is actually made up aggregating
a bunch of 64K channels using ISDN style technology)

> The problem is that I don't pay the phone bill in my house, and my parents
> have the BT light-user scheme which I don't want to scupper. Broadband
> wouldn't have mattered to them, but I'm thinking ISDN might...

Yup probably - you could always offer to pay the difference for them.

--
Cheers,

John.

/================================================== ===============\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\================================================= ================/

"As mellow as a horse" <richie42@***xxxSPAMOFFxxxx**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote
> Anyway, as I've been turned <down> for ASDL.

>and my parents
> have the BT light-user scheme

perhaps this is why you where turned down for adsl.

have you tried the exchange checker at www.adslguide.org.uk to see if your
exchange is on? if so then the line checker may show that you have
"incompatible services" rather than totally unable due to no exchange or the
like

i think youll find the cost of taking over the fone line on regular account
(£11) and getting adsl (£24) to be cheaper than isdn 128 anyway

--
jon
________
replace the WORDS to make it work

"jon" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:3fcfde93$0$9394$(E-Mail Removed)...
> "As mellow as a horse" <richie42@***xxxSPAMOFFxxxx**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote
> > Anyway, as I've been turned <down> for ASDL.
>
> >and my parents
> > have the BT light-user scheme
>
> perhaps this is why you where turned down for adsl.
>
> have you tried the exchange checker at www.adslguide.org.uk to see if your
> exchange is on? if so then the line checker may show that you have
> "incompatible services" rather than totally unable due to no exchange or
the
> like
>
> i think youll find the cost of taking over the fone line on regular
account
> (£11) and getting adsl (£24) to be cheaper than isdn 128 anyway
>
> --
> jon
> ________
> replace the WORDS to make it work
>

You obviously missed my long and not very exciting moans on the subject of
ADSL the other week (just look up "Turned down by freeserve but BT engineer
gives all clear" if you have too much time on your hands...

Yes, the exchange is on, and I'm roughly 5km away (not necessarily cable
length). Basically I went through freeserve and got turned down (BT
wholesale said this was due to line loss and distance ). I put the order
through again on freeserve to see what would happen, but nobody from BT or
freeserve has contacted me to say I've been denied again (but I can take a
hint). I might try BT broadband in the new year, 'cos as dear as they are,
it's much better value than any ISDN package I've seen. And if they turn me
down, everyone else will.

I had a sneaking suspician that the light-user may have had 'something' to
do with it, but nobody at BT (and I've spoken to a few people) has so much
as dropped a hint this may be so. Nothing about incompatible services on
ADSL checkers, but wouldn't this be revealing my billing info if it did
(anyone can enter my number).

Yes, I could get my own phone line, but I would still probably be screwed,
although it might be cheaper to find out than get isdn installed (I think),
and I could always have the primary line disconnected if the new one is OK
for adsl.

"As mellow as a horse" <richie42@***xxxSPAMOFFxxxx**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote in
message news:bqop2r$oao$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Yes, I could get my own phone line, but I would still probably be screwed,
> although it might be cheaper to find out than get isdn installed (I
think),
> and I could always have the primary line disconnected if the new one is OK
> for adsl.

You can order a new line and when ordering state that it must be suitable
for ADSL.
(Ring back later to make sure they added it to the order notes properly!)

If they install it (their choice) and it doesn't work for ADSL, they will
remove the new line and refund the installation cost.

Regards
Sunil

"As mellow as a horse" <richie42@***xxxSPAMOFFxxxx**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote in
message news:bqohnt$dt6$(E-Mail Removed)...

> ... but the governement think so!

and so does NTL with their 150K service that they like to claim is
broadband but isn't

On 2003-12-04, As mellow as a horse
<richie42@***xxxSPAMOFFxxxx**eidosnet.co.uk> wrote:
>
> I've even seen something on 256k. How's that work, FOUR channels or
> something?

Yes. To get four channels you'd normally use two basic rate (ISDN2)
lines, and then connect both of these to the same router or PC. You can
also use primary rate ISDN, but this is overkill for just 256Kb/s.

Because the lines would be presented as two physical lines each capable of
128Kb/s you'd need hardware that can be connected to both sets of lines.
This needs a router like a Cisco 1720 which has the ability to have two
external interfaces (which can both be ISDN cards), or a PC with multiple
internal ISDN cards.

I've had 256Kb/s ISDN running on both a Cisco 1720 and a PC. In the case of
the PC this was using FreeBSD as the OS and using ELSA Microlink PCI cards,
though all the cards supported by FreeBSD should have worked fine - it
wasn't neccessary for the card to have any special features here. The PC
solution should have scaled up to 512Kb/s, but at this point I ran out of
ISDN lines to test it on :-) I understand that the authors of this part of
FreeBSD decided to stop at bonding 8 basic rate channels together as they
felt it was more appropriate to switch to primary rate ISDN at that point.

The bonding of more than two channels together isn't exactly common, so
it's not wise to assume that your ISP will support it - it's not difficult,
but many ISPs won't be familiar with it and others may have decided not to
support it for technical reasons (it can put an excessive load on the dial
up equipment in some circumstances).

Glyn.

As mellow as a horse wrote:

> I had a sneaking suspician that the light-user may have had
> 'something' to do with it, but nobody at BT (and I've spoken to a few
> people) has so much as dropped a hint this may be so. Nothing about
> incompatible services on ADSL checkers, but wouldn't this be
> revealing my billing info if it did (anyone can enter my number).

The adsl phone number checker does not reveal any billing info. But it will
say if there are incompatible services on the line. For example, if I put
my isdn number in there, it will say that it is an isdn line. But thats all
it will say, no personal information or anything is revealed

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003 12:23, "Beck" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>But it will say if there are incompatible services on the line.
>For example, if I put my isdn number in there, it will say that
>it is an isdn line.

The message I get says "Our initial test on your line suggests that you
should be able to have ADSL broadband service that provides up to 2 Mbps
download speed. (and...) Note: If you have an ISDN or ome Highway
service connected to this number... If you have an existing Broadband
ADSL servce and wish to change ..."

So there may have been some change where the tests done are less thorough
so as to appear positive. I get that same message for
a) Home Highway numbers (where it should spot HH)
b) line with ADSL service
c) line which has had ADSL service cancelled (so ISP has deleted username
and password, and it cannot be "logged in" for PPP, but connection to#
the exchange is still "active" at 576/288. Cancellation is to allow a
change on that line to 1 Mbps, but cannot be done until I know link to
exchange is down and ADSL is totally ceased for that line Peter M.