ISDN Switch Simulator on the Cheap? 26
smartmux wonders: "I've starting working on earning a CCNA certification, and part of the requirement for this cert and the 'professional' level cert is to know and understand how to install ISDN BRI circuits. Getting the Cisco router equipment to configure is easy and relatively cheap, but real ISDN lines or an off-the-shelf ISDN simulator is way too expensive. I'm not a *nix guy, so I thought I'd ask here -- is it possible to take an old PC, a couple of ISDN network cards, and an open-source PBX (like Asterick maybe) and make a simple ISDN switch to let my two routers talk?"
Just take the fucking test... (Score:1)
Re:Just take the fucking test... (Score:2, Insightful)
Complain to Cisco (Score:2)
Who uses ISDN in a new installation anyway? These days you either go great guns with an OC3 or better between office locations or you use business/consumer grade DSL or Cable modem and VPN between office locations. I still hear of new T1 installations every now and then for certain critical uses where latency, se
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:3, Insightful)
ISDN is still highly used, to this day. In fact, our videoconferencing bridge allows all sorts of connectivity options - one of which we use is multiple "bonded" ISDN channels. So we can get 384k out of 6 channels...
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:2)
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:2, Interesting)
They had (and theoretically still do have) an ISDN videoconferencing solution. However, they almost never used it. Then one day, the big boss (the actual owner of the 1,000-person international company) came and wanted to VC back to headquarters in Germany. Didn't work. The problem was the same as above: the LD service on the ISDN line was misconfiugred, and we could not make International calls. So not only was it a problem that prevented
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:3, Informative)
Me, for one. Not exactly a new installation, but I just converted a bunch of E1 lines from R2 signalling to ISDN. It took about 4 hours, 3 of which were experimenting and testing to make sure the signalling was correct, then about 10 minutes to switch over each E1 and monitor call reliability. Next week I have to bring a whole system over to SS7, and start to convert the far end from R2 to ISDN. It's a standard Cisco job.
I'm not a big fan of the Cisco certs, but Ci
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:1)
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:2)
Here in Europe it's relatively common for people using the second option you suggest (DSL) to have ISDN fall-back in the event of failure of the DSL line. This is relatively easy to acomplish with a Cisco 1801.
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:2)
(for the pupose of this post i will use normal broadband to reffer to dsl/cable interner services)
anyone who wan'ts on demand and very dependable conectivity (normal broadband whilst cheap doesn't have particualarlly high uptime gaurantees) but doesn't use it enough of the time to justify a dedicated cuircuit.
or anyone who wants more than dialup, can't afford a dedicated cuircuit and can't get normal broadband.
or anyone who has lots of pots and would like a few more
Re:Complain to Cisco (Score:2)
I passed my CCNA last year (Score:2)
I started studying for the CCNA by preparing for the CCNP. Thats how I study. I bought 2 1600 routers, 7 2500 and 1 2600 routers. Also got 2 switches and started working on them. Next I bought tonnes of old machines to remoteboot, load linux using PXE, and run gated to increase the number of 'routers' I had so I can just work on them and fix them, and therefore know all networking. I bought arcnet cards, atm cards
Re:I passed my CCNA last year (Score:1)
Why not rent some time somewhere? (Score:2, Informative)
Teltone Simulators (Score:1)
mISDN and PBX4Linux can do this (Score:5, Informative)
Well, you guessed right, Linux can do this!
A few links:
Linux 2.6 and mISDN HowTo [uni-mb.si]
PBX4Linux [jolly.de]
Have fun!
SoHo Switch (Score:1)
Typical companies are Siemens or Telebau. A Telnet Willy 4ab from Telebau should be sufficient and somewhat cheaper than even the cheapest simulator.
Boson NetSim (Score:1, Informative)
AVM Fritz!Box Fon (Score:2)
Here is all you need to know about ISDN (Score:1)