Check out the Pacesetter routers from ADC Kentrox (www.kentrox.com). We
got a couple of Skyline Technologies Veloces 3 years ago, and they
worked pretty well (one continuous ISDN customer still uses one). The
box has an ISDN U interface and a T1/E1 speed serial port (can do leased
line or frame relay). The other Veloce was relegated to the shelf for
backup uses (partly because we could depend on it). Skyline
Technologies got bought by ADC Kentrox and they renamed the Veloce to
the Pacesetter Pro. We didn't use more of them because they were more
expensive than an Ascend Pipeline 50.
Well, I pulled the Veloce off the shelf yesterday after sitting there
for about a year and a half, and decided to load the latest Pacesetter
Pro software. It now does all the good stuff: NAT, BACP, STAC,
on-demand or nailed up connections (which the NetGears can't do AFAIK),
can handle up to 120 static routes (Pipe50 can only do 4!), and is the
easiest thing I've ever seen to configure: take a new unit, plug it in
and hook up to the serial port. The first screen asks for the IP
address and netmask, the phone number, username, and password, and the
SPIDs. One screen and it is configured for basic use.
I looked around at prices, and it looks like it is about the same as a
Pipeline 50. There are two models available at that price: one with a
T1 serial port, and one with two POTS ports and 4 10BaseT ports (both
models have ISDN). They also have a model with an integrated T1 CSU/DSU
(also has the ISDN) which is available for about $1000 some places.
I love my Lucent PM3s, but Lucent doesn't have anything _today_ that can
touch a NetGear RT328 or a Pacesetter Pro (of one model or another). I
hope they do at some point.
-- Chris Adams - cadams@ro.com System Administrator - Renaissance Internet Services I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble. - To unsubscribe, email 'majordomo@livingston.com' with 'unsubscribe portmaster-users' in the body of the message. Searchable list archive: <URL:http://www.livingston.com/Tech/archive/>