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From: terry@spcvxb.spc.edu (Terry Kennedy, Operations Mgr.)
Subject: Re: ISDN Support
Nntp-Posting-Host: spcvxa.spc.edu
References: <D8HrLr.BnG@emr1.emr.ca>
Sender: news@spcuna.spc.edu (Network News)
Organization: St. Peter's College, US
Date: Sat, 13 May 1995 02:04:42 GMT
Message-ID: <1995May12.220442.1@spcvxb.spc.edu>
Lines: 30
In article <D8HrLr.BnG@emr1.emr.ca>, jjanarth@emr1.emr.ca (Jay Janarthanan) writes:
> [...] Also ISDN cost less then 56k from the telco.
Be careful with making pricing comparisons based on installation or monthly
charges only. There seem to be very few US telcos with "flat rate" pricing for
ISDN data calls. So, while your 56Kb line costs more per month for the ser-
vice, it's a fixed cost with no additional price for moving bits over it. The
ISDN line probably charges by the minute. Get the per-minute prices from the
telco and figure out how many minutes/day you will use the circuit, then do
the math to see which is cheaper. Also factor in increased usage and see where
the cross-over point is, if ISDN is currently cheaper based on your anticipated
usage.
Also, you can get relatively inexpensive cards for BSD/OS boxes that speak
56KB - I don't know of any (yet) that speak ISDN, so you'll have some one-time
costs to get this set up.
I expect that it's possible that some telcos will offer "leased line ISDN"
which gets rid of the per-minute charges. Internally, it's cheaper to engineer
a 56Kb circuit than ISDN, so I'd still expect the price to be better for 56Kb,
but I have seen some strange pricing things from telcos. [For example, a cus-
tomer with 4000 regular phone numbers got them delivered on T1's from the
telco because the telco wanted to save pairs. As the customer had a digital
PBX, they asked telco how much they would save if telco didn't install all of
the T1-to-dialtone channel banks and just gave them the T1's. The plain T1's
with no equipment would be 4 times more expensive. Go figure.]
Terry Kennedy Operations Manager, Academic Computing
terry@spcvxa.spc.edu St. Peter's College, Jersey City, NJ USA
+1 201 915 9381 (voice) +1 201 435-3662 (FAX)