Date: Fri, 20 Oct 1995 12:23:37 -0400 From: dennis@etinc.com (dennis) To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@FreeBSD.org> Cc: hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Bragging rights.. Message-ID: <199510201623.MAA01303@etinc.com>
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Jordan writes.. >> Actually, Dennis started this thread by trying to get a price reference for >> the Async solution that Jordan referred to....I did not start it by saying >> that sync is better than async. My point was that if for about the same >> money you can have a more flexible solution that will use less of your CPU >> it is worth considering. Unlike most of you, my perspective is > >All true, and now that we've established that the basic cost of entry >(not counting the line itself) for a TA and a serial card is about $650 >(or 2X if you're responsible for both sides), the final question simply >remains as to whether the cost *increment* to get that last 38.9% or so >is worth it. I'm not saying it is or isn't either way, and 38.9% is >certainly nothing to sneeze at (that's basically one V.34 modem's worth >of pipe you're *losing*), but if sync serial cards cost half again what >the TAs cost, well, that's a steep knee in the price/performance curve >too! :( > >That's why I was optimistic about the ISDN card solutions: They're >cheaper than TAs, they give you your full 128K, and when drivers become >available (and they will, I am confident) they are just as plug-n-play >as a TA to anyone reasonably competent with a screwdriver. People are >plugging in their own VGA cards, I suppose they can handle an ISDN card! >:) > >However, you've already said that you don't like the ISDN cards and >consider them too limited, so we're back to the cost argument again. >Maybe what's needed is a low-end sync serial card that doesn't cost much >more than $150 and does everything up to 512K or so on one port. Target >it at the end user who only has (and needs) one connection and might go >frac-T1 someday but will most likely be pottering around at 128Kb for >some time. Let's face it, most of us will never have a T1 at home. We >will dream about it, but that's going to be the premium business pipe >for some time and I don't expect it to fall within the reach of mere >mortals anytime soon! If I'm even going 256K by the end of '96 I'll be >pretty happy. So I would have need for a pair of sync-serial cards that >were cheap and would do everything up to this data rate for at least 2 >years, and that's all the service life I expect from *any* computer >related component these days.. :-) I'm not an ISP, I'm an end-user and >my needs and budget are rather different than the market you probably >deal with ordinarily.. You can sell one for $150. if you want! Find someone who'll take 1,000 at a time and is willing to do the support and pay COD then we can talk. If you want a dumb controller, fine, but that defeats the purpose, and then it won't do frac T1 very well. I'm thinking about a $600. solution in reasonable quantities (about $250. for the TA and $350. for the card and software). Better than ISDN card solutions because of the HDLC processor power and convertable to leased line. There'd have to be a decent market for it though. You can't sell a handful of cards at low profit..... dennis ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Emerging Technologies, Inc. http://www.etinc.com Synchronous Communications Cards and Routers For Discriminating Tastes. 56k to T1 and beyond. Frame Relay, PPP, HDLC, and X.25
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