Well, let's take a shot:
PM-3 vs Telebit MICA
* MICA's future seems uncertain - Cisco is buying the technology from
Telebit. See <http://www.telebit.com/NewS/newcopr.html>
* They make a big deal out of the MICA boards being based on the ISA
bus - like this is a major deal. First of all, ISA isn't all that
great - they talk as if since millions of PCs use it, it must be
great. Fact is millions of PCs use it just because ISA was what IBM
started using and there is a HUGE weight of history there. Note that
new technology is going with PCI. They could have designed an
optimized data bus just for the modem cards - like we did. Second,
the reason they use ISA is because the NetBlazer family was based on
PCs. The first NetBlazers were nothing more than a PC chassis with
serial port cards and a port of KA9Q with a proprietary OS. This
lineage is still evident throughout the product line.
* MICA uses a single DSP for multiple modem sessions. Personally I'd
like to see how much room for growth that leaves - are they using DSPs
with more overhead than other solutions, or are they using the same
level of DSP others use for a single modem connection?
* The MicaBlazer T24 model is priced at $17,999 (USD) and the
MicaBlazer E30 model is priced at $19,799 (USD). MICA Granite Card
DM24 is priced at $8,999 (USD) and MICA Granite Card DM30 is priced at
$10,999 (USD). I can't find a full price sheet, I took these from:
<http://www.telebit.com/NewS/micaship.html> - these prices are much
higher than the PM-3 - with 23 B channels the T24 is ***$782.56*** per
port! Compare that to $413.78 per port for a 1 PRI T1 PM-3 at ISP
pricing, or even $752.17 per port at full list for the PM-3. They
don't have pricing up for the dual PRI model, but let's estimate it
with the T24 + Granite DM24 - for $586.91 per port. The PM-3 is
$366.54 per port with 48 modems, or $355.74 per port with 46 modems -
at ISP prices. If you compare full list they get an edge with the
PM-3 at $666.30 per port with 48 modems and $646.74 each with 46
modems.
* The CSU/DSU on the Telebit is optional - I don't believe the prices
above include it - it is standard on the PM-3
* While the individual cards are available in 6, 12, 18, 24, and 30
modem incriments - it appears that each chassis takes *two* cards. So
you don't have a choice about it. If you want to start low and add
modems, you must remove the old card and insert a larger one.
* The unit is physcally much larger than the PM-3
* It boots from a 1.44MB floppy disk - it doesn't have FLASH to boot
from itself.
* It doesn't appear to support multichassis multilink PPP.
* It seems to support all the same protocols we do - except they do
support ARAP, Appletalk, and NetBUI. We have stated we will not
support ARAP or NetBUI because they are outdated, and Appletalk is
currently on the back burner.
* You can add up to two additional ethernet interfaces to it, the PM-3
is limited to the one interface. I should mention that to be fair.
* Both units will do STAC compression.
* Difference in RAM needed, as an indication of OS efficiency - PM-3
has 4 Megs, Telebit 8 Megs.
* I don't see any mention of OSPF or BGP. OSPF is in mid-beta for all
of our products, and we already have early working BGP code - which
will follow shortly after OSPF. We're also looking at RIPv2 possibly
after OSPF as demand is increasing.
* Telebit does not offer unlimited lifetime support, we do.
* I'm uncertain about software upgrades, I *think* they do offer those
free of charge but I'm not positive on that. We do offer lifetime
free softeare upgrades.
Sources for data:
<http://www.telebit.com/ProductS/mbds.html>
<http://www.telebit.com/ProductS/grands.html>
<http://www.telebit.com/ProductS/nbgrds.html>
<http://www.telebit.com/ProductS/micawp.html>
<http://www.telebit.com/NewS/micaship.html>
<http://www.telebit.com/NewS/newcopr.html>
<http://www.telebit.com/SupporT/services/summary.html>
-MZ
-- Livingston Enterprises - Chair, Department of Interstitial Affairs Phone: 800-458-9966 510-426-0770 FAX: 510-426-8951 megazone@livingston.com For support requests: support@livingston.com <http://www.livingston.com/> Snail mail: 6920 Koll Center Parkway #220, Pleasanton, CA 94566 See me in person: Internet Expo, Boston, MA, October 16-17, Booth 422 ;-)