[Scottish] ISDN adaptors

[Michael Cameron]

>
>You should not need an adaptor.  The Highway box has an integral
>USB TA.  I
>have SuSE 8.1 and can connect via a USB cable; although my default
>route is
>via ethernet and a switch/router box.
>
>The USB TA uses:
>/lib/modules/2.4.19-4GB/kernel/drivers/isdn/hisax/hisax_st5481.o
>
>I also look after other machines that is use AVM FRitz pci cards
>supplied by
>BT.  They were autodetected by (I think it was) SuSE 7.0 and work fine.
>
I picked up a Netopia R3100-SP ISDN router on ebay for £25.  There are
bargains to be had from ISDN customers now covered by DSL/cable.
If you are interested in more speed then you probably want something that
will give the full 128K rather than just using the single 64K channel and
that means finding a reasonable 128K ISP which is no mean feat if you have
anything more than minimal usage.  Unmetered 128K has only been available
since the middle of last year and the main players are all struggling a
little between contention (and remember this is contention for a port not
for bandwidth so there are times when you will be unable to connect),
maximum usage (200 hrs/month is about the max) and cutoffs (2 to 4 hrs).
Prices vary by package from as low as £5 (the wee small hours only) to over
£50 for anytime with a reasonable package.  Personally I just gave up and
got an uncontended line from Demon (it is being activated tomorrow).  Not
cheap though.  Finally, if you are a gamer then you probably want to avoid
the USB socket, I believe it can easily add in excess of 10ms to pings
(which incidentally are probably worse on 128K than 64K).

Michael