ISDN lines and devices Flashcards
What does XCAPI stand for?
Software for computer assisted personal interviewing.
What does ISDN stand for?
Integrated Services Digital Network
Origin of ISDN?
ISDN was originally developed when POTS lines were the only telecommunications systems available. POTS lines used twisted pair cables with two copper wires per endpoint. ISDN enabled the same copper wire pairs to conduct two phone calls where the analog system could only do one. ISDN is more used in countries where telecom systems have not made the move to DSL yet, but can be found almost anywhere.
List and describe the 2 types of ISDN channels.
B or Bearer channels: The B channels are used to carry the data
D or Delta channels: The D channels are used for signaling and control. There are uncommon circumstances where they could be used for data but not commonly.
List and describe the 2 types of ISDN accesses.
RI (Basic Rate Interface): BRI consists of two B channels which provides a bandwidth of 64 Kbps. It also consists of one D channel with a bandwidth of 16 Kbps. This is usually referred to as 2B+D
The basic rate lines connect to the network using a standard twisted pair of copper wires. The data can then be transmitted simultaneously in both directions to provide full duplex operation. The data stream is carried as two B channels as mentioned above, each of which carry 64 kbps (8 k bytes per second). This data is interleaved with the D channel data and this is used for call management: setting up, clearing down of calls, and some additional data to maintain synchronization and monitoring of the line.
PRI (Primary Rate Interface): With PRI, there are a greater number of bearer channels than BRI and the D channel has a greater bandwidth of 64 Kbps. The number of B channels depends on the worldwide location. In Europe and Australia, it is known as an E1 line and has 30 bearer channels (30B+D) while in North America and Japan you would see 23 B channels, known as a T1 line (23B+D).
The primary rate connections utilize four wires - a pair for each direction. They are normally 120 ohm balanced lines using twisted pair cable. Primary rate connections always use a point to point configuration. Primary rate lines are widely used to connect to Private Branch exchanges (PBX) in an office etc. Typically this may be used to provide a number of analog lines or basic rate ISDN lines to the users.
We covered the above for one main reason, some of the ISDN devices FaxMaker supports are BRI and some are PRI. We will not go configuring someones T1 interface in their router, but it will be very reassuring to the customer that you have some basic knowledge of the theory behind ISDN.
List and describe the types of ISDN devices.
AVM
See the full list of the supported ISDN BRI AVM cards.
Brooktrout
These cards support Analog, ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI - E1/T1, and Fax-over-IP.
See the full list of the supported Brooktrout cards.
GFI Software also sells Brooktrout cards by Dialogic.
Dialogic (Eicon) / Now Sangoma
These cards support Analog, ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI -E1/T1, and Fax-over-IP.
See the full list of the supported Dialogic cards.
PrimuX
These cards support ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI.
See the full list of the supported PrimuX devices.
XCAPI
Software-only Fax-over-IP (FoIP) solution.
LANCOM
Supported LANCOM FAX Gateway Devices.
Bintec
Supported Bintec FAX Gateway Devices.
BeroNet
Fax Gateway Device and ISDN (BRI) card.
See the full list of the supported BeroNet devices.
HST
These devices support ISDN BRI, ISDN PRI.
See the full list of the supported HST Saphir devices.
Vega
Supported only in combination with Dialogic SR140 software.
See the full list of the supported Vega devices.
Describe ISDN logging.
ISDN Logging
Brooktrout devices, since they are physical will use the ltbtrtxx.txt files, where xx is the line number. Brooktrout also has ecc logging, which is enabled in the Brooktrout configuration. These items will be covered further in the Brooktrout course.
All other ISDN devices produce a line log that is the same as the line. As the example above showed ISDN2B3 as the line and the log for that line would be ISDN2B3.txt.
