Re: tlug: ISDN

[Scott Stone <sstone@example.com>]

On Mon, 18 May 1998, J. David Beutel wrote:

> I'm getting a phone line for my new apartment in Tokyo, and
> looking for advice on analog versus ISDN, and ISDN info.
> Is there a Japan ISDN FAQ?
> 
> I guess my cheapest option is to buy a used analog line for about
> JPY50,000, use my 28.8k modems on it, and then resell it in a few years.
> Since I won't be doing much work from home, it's viable.  But,
> I'm used to having another analog line for voice.

no, contact Naomi at bricks.or.jp and go with 'ISDN Lite'.  No phone
rights to buy.  I'm doing this now and it's inexpensive and good.

> 
> I've heard that the ISDN basic rate interface is two 64k B-channels
> for data or voice, plus one 16k D-channel for out-of-band data.
> Is it the same in Japan?  How do the usage rates compare (including
> ISPs, e.g., TWICS)?  How much is BRI, and can I resell it later
> like an analog line?  Is "Always On/Dynamic ISDN" available?
> 
> For hardware, I've heard of routers which will establish data connections
> on one or both B channels based on bandwidth demand, and also provide
> two analog jacks.  Then, there are ISDN modem cards, but can Linux
> handle them?  (I might use Linux on my desktop as a router to my laptop..)
> And, I'd need another interface anyway to use an analog phone and fax?
> There are 2 physical layer standards, "S/T" and "U"?  Which ones are used
> in Japan?  Would the same hardware work well in the US?

1.  You want an external ISDN to use w/ Linux.
	some internal cards are supported, but most of them are
	German-sold models which won't work in Japan at all.
2.  Most of the externals in Japan have 2 analog jacks.
3.  Most ISPs in Japan don't provide dual channel 128, or if they do, it's
more than twice as much as a single 64k.
4.  ISDN TAs sold in Japan won't work in the USA, and vice-versa.

Bonus Hint: if you buy the AIWA TA (it was 10,000 yen cheaper than the NEC
equivalent when I got mine), you'll need a small kernel patch for Linux,
since the AIWA's firmware implementation of PPP is broken and can only
talk properly to un-optimized PPP implementations such as W95's.

--------------------------------------------------
Scott M. Stone <sstone@example.com, sstone@example.com>
               <sstone@example.com>
Linux Developer/Systems Administrator for Pacific HiTech, Inc. 
http://www.pht.com		http://armadillo.pht.co.jp
http://www.pht.co.jp	        http://www.turbolinux.com


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