[plug] (was EQL) DoV ISDN internet, from [SLUG]

[Mike Holland]

On Mon, 8 Jan 2001, duffy wrote:
> I did look up the pricing for telstra line charges and it is charging $1
> an hour for data calls.

I thought someone said that was data-over-voice. But anyway, David at slug
explained it better:

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 7 Jan 2001 11:50:25 +1100
From: Dave Fitch <David_Fitch at email.com>
To: Jon Biddell <jon at fl.net.au>
Cc: slug at slug.org.au
Subject: alternatives to cable/adsl (was Re: [SLUG] New LINUX Usr)

On Sat, Jan 06, 2001 at 11:02:51PM +1100, Jon Biddell wrote:
> At 09:09 PM 5/01/01 +1100, Peter Hardy wrote:
> >2) You can get O at H in the Blue Mountains?  I am _so_ there! :-)
> 
> Bastard.... What I wouldn't give to be able to get cable here - I can't 
> even get a cheap satellite connection !

Another option instead of cable/adsl is ISDN.
Of course it's always been ridiculously expensive due to
telstra's pricing, but, one option that might be worth
considering is:
1) get an onramp home highway installed
2) buy an ISDN card/"modem"/router (that supports DoV)
3) join an ISP that:
   a) has reasonably priced ISDN indial
   b) supports DoV (data over voice)

The advantage of ORHH (onramp home highway) over any other
service is it's basically an onramp2 but priced for home use
so you get untimed local calls.  It includes 2 analogue lines
plus a digital SBUS socket.  You connect your ISDN card
to the SBUS socket and, in telstra's universe, pay $1 per
hour per B (ie. 64k) channel in use (to telstra).

The "trick" is to use an ISDN card (or other ISDN equipment
like a Cisco router) that allows you to set the DoV flag
in outgoing calls.  This makes telstra's network think it's
a voice call and you get charged an untimed 20c local call.

The "catch" is you need an ISP that supports this (they
need to configure their access servers appropriately).

So you get a 64k connection for a 20c untimed call or
a 128k connection for two 20c untimed local calls.
And that's synchronous (not async like modems) and
symmetric (ie. 128k up and down unlike 56k modems
or cable/adsl).

One-off costs are:
1) $190.30 (assuming replacing one existing PSTN line) 
2) $262.35 (NetJet PCI ISDN card from everythinglinux)
3) depends on your usage what type of plan you want
   The one I was considering was Internode, so $30 setup fee

Ongoing costs:
1) $42.90 per month (includes $5.50 worth of calls, and remember
this is for 2 phones lines so isn't that bad)
2) none
3) Internode say $22/m plan for 25 hours/m per B channel
so using both B channels to get 128k chews through your
time twice as fast (there's other plans too including
untimed but data charged (ie. for permanent connections)).

Note: with 20c local calls (per B channel) check with telstra first
to make sure your ISP is a "local" call, there is a distance limit 
of something like 25km with ORHH after which it's not considered
"local" (ie. untimed) anymore.

Note: even if you don't want ISDN, an ORHH can be useful
if you've got crap lines in your area, plugging a 56k
modem into one of the ORHH analogue sockets will get you
a near perfect 56k (ie. 54k) connection.  You can of course
also do 56k modem MPPP.

For other ISPs, Traverse list some on their web site.
Traverse also have lots of general info on ISDN and
using DoV.  Cisco also have plenty of doco on DoV on
their site and how to configure Cisco gear to use it.

For more info see:
http://www.telstra.com.au/products/product.cfm?prod_id=4023&mode=browseAZ&setid=3
http://www.telstra.com.au/onramp/pricing.htm
http://www.traverse.com.au/Australia/html/main.html
http://www.everythinglinux.com.au/catagory.php3?start=8&max=8&invcata=40&invcatb=5&sortby=name&searchwords=&newprods=&prodtype=normal
http://www.internode.on.net/

Hope you find this interesting!
Dave.



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