Help this Co-op to not get fired!!

[Fugifighter]

Hi guys, i recently got a co-op at this small business as a network/IT person. Well my boss told me they are opening an office branch and he is putting an 128k ISDN line in. well I found this ISP out there and they were trying to get me to buy one of their ISDN routers but i was a little unsure about trusting a used router. Well here's some more background info. This business place i'm working at has a SonicWall VPN network set up so inside the new branch, we'll have a tele3 sonic wall. My boss says in this new office will be 4 computers and a network printer. He asked me to design a small network and to suggest hardware. For the internal network, i was thinking that since 128k ISDN probably wont fully utilize it, a 10baseT hub will do. we have a Belkin 10baseT hub here at the main office so that'll cut down on some cost. so the hub will be connected to the sonicwall on the LAN port and on the sonicwall WAN port, the ISDN router will sit and that will be connected to the outlet on the wall. Well so far i've only done a little research on the ISDN routers. I've seen Netgear RT 338NA, Intel Express 8205 and a Cisco 776M. They all look pretty expensive to me and i dont see any other specs that i'm looking for. mainly compatibility with VPN.

Here's where i'd like for anyone to give me suggestions for an ISDN router and probably check to see that there's no compatibility issues with the sonicwall VPN. my boss says he expects the router will be somewhere around $500. I'm leaning towards the Netgear or the Cisco. Thanks in advance!!

 

[Goosemaster]

I would still get 100MBits cards and a switch to match. You have not mentioned wheter or nor inter-pc communcation is a factor, so if it is, you meight as well get athat. Regardless, do get a switch, not a hub, of the 100 or 100 varieteies

 

[netsysadmin]

Does the remote office need an internet connection??...if so just skip the ISDN and just buy a business class DSL or Cable internet access and setup a VPN via the internet to the main office...I would imagine that a standard DSL/Cable connection would cost less than a dedicated ISDN

by the way is the ISDN a direct line to the other office or to the internet?...that would make a difference here

 

[Fugifighter]

There will be minimal internal PC communication. maybe the occational sending of word document files. Nothing big, that's why i thought a hub we already have that is not in use could go there. As for the DSL/Cable, my boss said that that was the only thing out in that neck of the woods. so it was either ISDN or satelite! The ISDN line is to the internet, we just got a static IP for it. Goosemaster, would the ISDN traffice ever go over 10Mbs?? i thought that ISDN was just a little over twice as fast as a regular 56k modem.

fugi

 

[Goosemaster]

<< would the ISDN traffice ever go over 10Mbs?? >>



I'm not sure how to interpret that that, but it seems like you want to know if ISDN can transmit faster than 10MBits.s)


The answere is now. ISDN, as you yourself stated, has a maximum of 128Kbits.s through dual channels. Hence, if you were downloading something off of the neet, hte fastest speed you could theortically achieve would be 16KB/s...this in the units that you would see in the Internet Explorer Download window

 

[Goosemaster]

In other words..."ISDN SUCKS!!!" I;m sorry...that was a required reading