We have an ISDN line here at work. We are able to get out onto the internet for only about three minutes a day, when noone else is around. Our ISP, who also suplied our router has told us we don’t have enough band width to support our usage. Our phone provider said they would test some things but I needed to give them the phone number we dial to get to our ISP. Our ISP has told me they do not know what that number is. Is there an easy way for me to find out what the phone number is that we dial to get to our ISP?
We have ordered a T1 (I can’t wait) but for the three weeks until that’s in, is there anything I can do to decrease our downtime (aside from staying away from the SDMB’s?)
What is the name of the service provider? I deal with many of them on a daily basis. ISDN has T1 capacity (1.544 MB) but that depends on what kind of resources (on the LAN side) it’s allocated to, also part of that may be devoted to regular phone lines leaving very little for data. But raw T1 is quite a lot of bandwidth and if there are no other (WAN side) restrictions (like the service provider restricting your CIR (committed information rate) then there should certainly be enough room for casual surfing.
ISP is Internet Commerce and Communications out of Chicago and it is my understanding that the ISDN line is dedicated to network access (internet e-mail and access).
Our phone system and LAN are handled thru other servers.
Short form: Your ISP are morons.
Long form:
Your ISP sure does know what number you call to dial
in to them. The support idiot you got on the phone just
wasn’t smart enough to figure it out. Unfortunatly this means that the onus falls on you to figure it out.
Most ISPs have two kinds of numbers - there are numbers
that correspond to geographic areas, and numbers allocated
specially for customers who pay a lot of money.
In the first case, there are a bunch of modems (or ISDN modems, or whatever) that answer the number when you dial
it. Usually 24 modems per number. You dial up, get connected, and that modem that answered your call doesn’t
answer the phone number any more. Instead, the next free modem will answer the next call to that number, etc… I’m oversimplyfing things a lot here, but you get the idea.
The other kind of connection is the one where you are
paying them a lot of money and you don’t want to ever get
a busy signal. So they give you a special phone number on
their end that’s connected to a modem that only you are
allowed to log in to. Nobody besides you and the ISP know the phone number.
It’s one of these two, or a simple variation on them.
If you can get into the ISDN equipment (modem or router) where you work that is responsible for the dialing in,
you can probably read the phone number it dials out of its
configuration. But if you don’t know how to do this already, you probably don’t have permission to do it, or wouldn’t
be able to figure out how even if you did.
Is there an IT person where you work who’s responsible
for keeping the computers and computer network running?
That’s probably the person you want to talk to for info
about the ISDN connection.
-Ben
Thank you a lot for your input. I am the numbers person here and the defacto IT person. (I know a very little but can make phone calls and post questions to find stuff out) So, I am going to go over to the router and see if I can find any phone numbers.
I again thank you for your help.
Chicago? That’s out of my territory, if you had been almost anywhere else I probably could have helped. I think SBC Communications owns the facilities in the midwest. Try calling them to get a contact number for the reseller that provides your service. If you have the power, you might want to go to Ameritech for your data service needs, since they are SBC’s data affiliate. I always prefer buying service directly from the company that owns the facilities rather than a 3rd party reseller. Some chains are better with fewer links.
Here is the web site for Internet Commerce & Communications, if that’s any help.