Re: considering covad

[Matt Wehland <mattw@webtripper.com>]

On Tuesday 27 January 2004 02:25 pm, you wrote:
> > Oh, and let's not forget that you can always drop your analog phone line
> > if you go ISDN.  That's a significant savings.
>
> Perhaps. I'm a bit leery about doing that because I'm not all that sure
> what hidden "gotchas" might attend. For example, can one connect a V.92
> analog modem to a wall plug that's actually an ISDN 2B+D port? How about a
> normal analog telephone (of which I have several)? Do the special codes
> (like *69 and *71) work the same? If I answer an inbound telephone call,
> does the data rate drop from 112kbps to 56kbps for the duration?
>
> See what I mean? I really wouldn't mind trading off the $45/month cost of
> two analog lines for better overall service. If it's all plusses, great.
> But if there are some minuses, I'd like to know in advance. If someone out
> there actually has upgraded to from classic analog to residential ISDN,
> I'd like to learn about their detailed experiences before I take the
> plunge.

Well it's been a few years (4-5) since my dad had ISDN, but I will try to 
remember some of the issues he had-
-need for a UPS has already been mentioned
-Caller ID didn't work right (may have been a phone/ISDN issue, it was an 
analog phone, not a real ISDN phone.)
Not sure of other calling features, didn't use them.
He was on an timed account, and you were charged by channel.  So you didn't 
have a full time connection (no good for running servers).
Also he had some problems with dial on demand/bringing up the B channel, but 
that may have been router related.  The channels would come up Ok, but not 
disconnect or not drop the B channel when not needed, and this cost money on 
the timed account. 
You can run anolog lines from it, but you have to rewire (connect to the ISDN 
box) and I'm not sure of the current capacity/how many phone/ringers you 
could run from it.
The only other issue I remember was just a lack of installer knowledge.  The 
first person I knew that got ISDN had to troubleshoot it himself, because the 
installer had no clue.  I think it took him 1-2 weeks to get a working 
connection (this was 5-7 years ago).

I think my dad still has the ISDN router (he was going to throw it away, but I 
think I had him keep it), so if you do go with ISDN let me know and I will 
look have him look for it.

Matt Wehland


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