Re: [hylafax-users] large multiport systems

[jlewis@lewis.org]

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003, Darren Nickerson wrote:

> > For scalability and management, T1/modem cards (like Eicon's) would be
> > ideal, but cost concerns will likely force them to go with external
> > rackmount modems and multiport cards...likely Cyclades Cyclom-64Ze's
> > unless there are much cheaper T1/modem cards that work well with Linux and
> > HylaFax.
> 
> Why do you think the Eicon solution is going to be more expensive??

I haven't shopped around enough, but it looks like the SVR T1 24M goes for
around $4k ($6k if you want the voice model).  That'd be at least $112k
for a T3 worth of them (plus we'd need around 6 or 7 servers to put them
in).  I can get 672 ports of Cyclades gear for under $30k for YeP's, a
little more than $40k for the Z series...needing 5 servers for YeP's, 4
for Z's.
 
I'd assumed, perhaps naively, that I could find rackmount modems (like 
ISPORTe's) for cheap on the used market since so many ISPs have switched 
from analog to digital.  I'd hoped we could find the digital version of 
these (with T1 interfaces) so we wouldn't have to break a CT3 of phone 
lines down to the DS0 level.  We haven't had much luck finding the 
ISPORTe digital modems...perhaps everyone switched to digital 
access-servers or went out of the dial-up business before upgrading to 
digital modems.
 
> Let's assume you decide to go the Cyclades board and analog modem route.
> You'd be well advised to select Multitech's V.92 modems, and the
> MultiModemZBA V.92 retails for $179. Take 24 of those, and throw in the
> Cyclades 64 port expander ... well I'll let you do the math but you're close
> to the $4999 price of an Eicon board.

At those prices, the Eicon starts to look much more attractive...but I 
didn't figure we'd pay anywhere near that per modem port.  A couple years 
ago, we actually disposed of our analog modems...even rackmount ones, 
because we couldn't find anyone willing to pay enough for them to be worth 
shipping them.  

> What you're not taking into account, however, is the cost of a T1 from your
> telco, and the cost of 24 messy analog lines (both monthly recurring and

That's been taken care of.  There's already a CT3 coming in, currently 
hooked up to a cisco AS5400 which we found out a little late can only 
handle about 1/4 the number simultaneous faxes as it has ports for.

We're looking for a more functional replacement.

> the monthly recurring cost ... long term this can mean big savings! Perhaps
> you're also not taking into account the fact that you can leverage the V.34
> capability of the EICON boards, as well as the ECM error correction and MMR
> compression to get better throughput than you can get from the analog
> modems. Less time on the phone is a smaller phone bill, and these savings

I was under the impression the vast majority of fax machines only support 
14.4kbps and 9600kbps as maximum speeds.  How does v.34 come into play?

The compression issue, I wasn't aware of.  So by choosing the wrong 
modems, we could dramatically increase the length of each call?  


----------------------------------------------------------------------
 Jon Lewis *jlewis@lewis.org*|  I route
 System Administrator        |  therefore you are
 Atlantic Net                |  
_________ http://www.lewis.org/~jlewis/pgp for PGP public key_________


____________________ HylaFAX(tm) Users Mailing List _______________________
  To subscribe/unsubscribe, click http://lists.hylafax.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi
 On UNIX: mail -s unsubscribe hylafax-users-request@hylafax.org < /dev/null
  *To learn about commercial HylaFAX(tm) support, mail sales@hylafax.org.*