dcm@uswat.uswest.com (David Christian Menges) (07/20/90)
I'm looking for someone experienced with Telebit's rack for their modems. We have the choice of going with stand alones vs rack mounts, and the main difference seems to be the rack's extended diagnostics. Is this well worth the extra cost, or something no one ever uses?
njs@scifi.UUCP (Nicholas J. Simicich) (07/20/90)
In article <9642@uswat.UUCP> dcm@uswat.uswest.com (David Christian Menges) writes: >I'm looking for someone experienced with Telebit's rack for their modems. >We have the choice of going with stand alones vs rack mounts, and the main >difference seems to be the rack's extended diagnostics. Is this well worth >the extra cost, or something no one ever uses? First off, the rack is great. We have one, and it seems to work fine. We use a Defender II, and have modems that are used for both origination and incoming lines, and the rack makes it convenient. The rack mount modems can deal with the A/A1 connection to force into origination mode (which is what happens when the Defender calls the person back) while still allowing answer mode (when the Defender simulates a ring signal). Frankly, we have had little trouble with the modems. The rack was quite useful for reprogramming the modems when they first arrived, but we've not had to use the monitor features or anything else. -- Nick Simicich - uunet!bywater!scifi!njs - njs@ibm.com - SSI #OWI 3958
grr@cbmvax.commodore.com (George Robbins) (07/21/90)
In article <9642@uswat.UUCP> dcm@uswat.uswest.com (David Christian Menges) writes: > I'm looking for someone experienced with Telebit's rack for their modems. > We have the choice of going with stand alones vs rack mounts, and the main > difference seems to be the rack's extended diagnostics. Is this well worth > the extra cost, or something no one ever uses? It depends on how many modems you plan to install. The regular trailblazers have the power supply in the line-cord arrangment and it's hard to put more than about 4 on a shelf without ending up with a tangled mess. We've got a number of loose ones and one rack of 12. The rack works just as well as the standalones, and even seems a little more immune to power glitch problems. One warning is that the rack doesn't come with any connector/cable for the phone lines. You either have to have a 25-pair telco cable to a demarcation block handy or make up a 12-line octopus. Be nice if they listed these as options... Also, while the diagnostic/setup port sounds nice, I never seem to use it often enough to remember the command sequences... -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing: domain: grr@cbmvax.commodore.com Commodore, Engineering Department phone: 215-431-9349 (only by moonlite)
dpb@Tellabs.COM (Darryl Baker) (07/29/90)
Question: Is the telebit rack worth the expense?
My answer: Yes.
The reasons I like it are that we have 20 modems the rack
allows us to administer them simply from a single location ( in
our case it is on a data network). I believe if you are not
going to have more than 8 modems don't bother. We have lines
on various machines this would mean that each system
administrator would have to know ALL about the modems, as it is
one person knows the modems and helps the other trouble shoot
their problems. One other fact I would like to note is that
the only command I wish the rack had was one to copy settings
from one modem to another. Telebit are you listening?. The
other reasons have been mentioned my others but I will repeat
them because they do hold true for us:
1) 20 rack mounted modems take much less space than
standalones. 2 10 inch racks (only one is inteligent
the other is slaved off the first)
2) You don't have 20 power supplies and 20 power cords
to route, cool, repair.
3) Cabling is simplified the modem to RS232 cabling is
clear and you don't have to remember which modem goes
to what machine and on which shelf.
Now I heard there was a problem getting phone lines to the rack.
My vendor offered a cable to do this but since our phone line pass
through a security device we opted to make custom cables. Standards
ar wonderfull but of course the security device and the modem rack
used 2 different standards on the same connector RS23X and RS27.
--
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/ / __. __ __ __ , // /--< __. /_ _ __ Darryl Baker
/__/_(_/|_/ (_/ (_/ (_/_</_ /___/_(_/|_/ <_</_/ (_ dpb@TELLABS.COM
/ dpb@liltyke.chi.il.us
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