Isdn?

magher

I recently found an old 3com isdn modem in my garage and thought Id use it.
Anyway I use Perlico Dialup (Who resell IOL dialup like most other dialup providers) and its says on their site it is isdn compatible.
What those that mean and how do I avail of it?
The modem has 4 LAN ports and one LAN port marked ISDN and two phone ports marked 1 and 2, how do I connect it the phone line?
Is The isdn phone line like a LAN connection?

kaizersoze

You need to get your line upgraded to ISDN to use that modem.

Foxwood

kaizersoze wrote:

You need to get your line upgraded to ISDN to use that modem.

"upgraded" ?

I'm not sure that's the word I'd use!

Foxwood

magher wrote:

I recently found an old 3com isdn modem in my garage and thought Id use it.
Anyway I use Perlico Dialup (Who resell IOL dialup like most other dialup providers) and its says on their site it is isdn compatible.
What those that mean and how do I avail of it?
The modem has 4 LAN ports and one LAN port marked ISDN and two phone ports marked 1 and 2, how do I connect it the phone line?
Is The isdn phone line like a LAN connection?

ISDN is basically a digital phone signal, delivered over a standard phone line. A phone line can be either a POTS (plain old telephone system) or an ISDN line, and the equipment is not compatible - you can't plug an ordinary phone or modem into an ISDN line, and you can't use ISDN hardware on a POTS line.

The perlico statement about being ISDN compatible probably means that you can use the perlico service even if you have an ISDN line. It doesn't mean that you can plug ISDN equipment into the line.

(Back in the 80's and early 90's, ISDN was the only way to get an internet connection that was faster that an ordinary 56k dialup modem - and ISDN line allows you to make 2 calls at the same time, and you could configure a ISDN modem to connect to the internet on an ISDN line at 128k, effectively 3 times the speed of a "good" dialup connection of 40-45k. And it only cost twice as much as dialup!).

The only lingering benefit of ISDN is the age of ADSL is that ISDN needs an "unsplit" phone line, just like ADSL, and while eircom won't usually unsplit your line if you order DSL (though they are getting better in that regard), they will unsplit it if you order ISDN. If you then cancel the ISDN, the line reverts to POTS, and might now support ADSL.