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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.caldera.com!enews.sgi.com!nntprelay.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!europa.clark.net!dispatch.news.demon.net!demon!arg1.demon.co.uk!server.arg.sj.co.uk!nobody From: Andrew Gordon <andrew.gordon@arg1.demon.co.uk> Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD and ISDN -- final analysis? Date: Fri, 20 Jun 1997 00:21:05 +0100 Message-ID: <33A9BEE1.41C67EA6@arg1.demon.co.uk> References: <5obd62$18v@news.gvsu.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: arg1.demon.co.uk X-NNTP-Posting-Host: arg1.demon.co.uk [194.222.34.166] X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01Gold (X11; I; FreeBSD 2.2-STABLE i386) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 31 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:43183 Matt Behrens wrote: > 1. The FreeBSD handbook states that ISDN is possible simply by hooking it > up to the serial port and using PPP, albeit limited to 115Kbps. This is true - for all operating systems. ISDN external TAs that emulate modems do indeed work exactly like modems. Unfortunately, this mode of use loses many of the benefits of ISDN - but if you are just considering ISDN as a faster replacement for a modem link, you may not care. > 2. Joerg (my apologies if I mispelled the name, I am a product of the > American public education system after all) ;) said in a post about a > month ago that ISDN needed the BISDN package, which was in a state of > incompleteness due to a need for complete rewrites right now. This is also true, but misleading. BISDN is perfectly usable despite the need for rewrite; you will find it in the /xperimnt directory on the last few FreeBSD CD-ROM releases among other places. This version is very stable, and implements IP over raw HDLC, plus inbound telephony (answerphone etc.). Patches are also available to do PPP; these are a bit of a hack but work adequately well. However, the main reason for not using BISDN is if you live in the USA: BISDN implements the standard Q.931 protocols (as published by the International Telecommunication Union, and widely used in Europe and elsewhere); unfortunately, American telephone companies have chosen to implement a variety of incompatible protocols.