Please see Ed Jung's e-mail regarding our problems with the
Ascend-Livingston link. This has been a thorn in our side for over six
months now. From the outset, we've had intermittent TCP lockup problems on
almost all of our remote
dedicated customers' connections. When we upgraded to Ascend's 4.6C release,
the problems became virtually intolerable.
On the face of it the solution seems ideal. The pipelines are low cost, have
an internal NT1, optional firewall firmware, forms based configuration, and
with the pipe 130, an internal T-1 csu/dsu. Livingston has probably the most
cost-effective BRI solution on the market today, reliable high performance
products, great technical support (with one possible exception :) )
and a loyal customer base.
The problem is simply, that in our experience, the products interoperate so
poorly, the solution at the current time is just not working for us.
If we could get the two companies together, I'm sure that this could be resolved
in short order. We're still hoping that it can. However, based upon our
experience, at this time, I just can't recommend using Livingston to serve
dedicated BRI customers with pipelines on the remote end.
Before anyone accuses me of Livingston bashing, I'd like to point out that
we are still a fiercely loyal Livingston customer. All of our dial-up and
ISDN connections are served by PM2s. We had ordered and received an Ascend 4002
PRI box to service two remote POPs. When Livingston announced the PM3, we
immediately shipped the 4002 back without unpacking it. We're now using
the PM3 and are thrilled with its performance.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Bob Zachok
>From: Kendrick Myatt <myattk@datatek.com>
>Date: Thu, 19 Dec 1996 14:11:58 -0600
>Subject: Ascend Pipeline 50 + 5-BRI problems?
>
>Good afternoon!
> Any problems in connecting a site with a Pipeline 50 to a 5-BRI with
>"automatic" type dedicated connection? I know that the proprietary
>compression could not be used on the Ascend, of course. It says it supports
>PAP and Multilink PPP, so I'm thinking no real problems (famous last words?)
> Any comments would be appreciated :)
>
>Regards,
>
>Kendrick
>
-------------------------
Robert M. Zachok, Atlantic Internet Technologies
rmz@exit109.com 628 Shrewsbury Ave.
(908) 758-0505 Red Bank, NJ 07701