Re: PM3 act any better with ISDN than 5BRI/OR-U?

Rich Brennan (brennan@merk.com)
Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:37:07 -0400

>> with the 5BRIs and now an OR-U, with near total silence from Livingston
>> tech support, I'm wary about going with Livingston's PM3.
>
>Bad luck? Ive tested the 5 bri AND the OR-U now with pipelines, courrier,
>and 3 com, and it seems to work fine. Seems to work especially fine with
>the Ascend products.
>
>> The price/performance of the PM3 looks great on paper, but if I have to
>> reset ISDN lines every other night, or have reboot the whole unit to recover
>> a wedged (ring/no-answer) ISDN line, that sure makes the performance part
>> of a PM3 look lousy.
>
>I have 3 pipe 25's at customer sites who have been nailed for days to a
>pm2e with a 5 bri card.

Problem's not with interoperability, unless you consider operating well with
the telco as interoperability. There's something that NYNEX does which will
absolutely wedge a 5BRI or OR-U ISDN port. Sometimes the magic
"reset d<port>" command will bring it back, other times a reboot of the
entire PM2/OR-U is the only thing that brings the port back. Lately, I
believe I've seen one or two instances that require a power cycle to get
the ISDN port back.

NYNEX claims its the equipment, and the continued silence from Livingston
makes me believe them.

I'm worried that if I go with a PM3 solution, I'll be resetting/rebooting/
power cycling PM3's to get my ISDN lines back in service.

Note: when the 5BRI's/OR-U's work, they work well. I also have long periods
of nailed up connections. However, leaving a 5BRI attached to an ISDN unused
(i.e. disconnected) for more than 2 days is impossible - whatever NYNEX
does in testing unconnected lines is *guaranteed* to wedge the line.

Rich