From owner-freebsd-isp Wed Oct 22 01:12:17 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id BAA15536 for isp-outgoing; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 01:12:17 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-isp) Received: from stingray.ivision.co.uk (stingray.ivision.co.uk [194.154.62.72]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with SMTP id BAA15531 for ; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 01:12:14 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from manar@ivision.co.uk) Received: from stingray.ivision.co.uk [194.154.62.72] by stingray.ivision.co.uk with smtp (Exim 1.62 #1) id 0xNvtj-0006Nd-00; Wed, 22 Oct 1997 09:12:11 +0100 Date: Wed, 22 Oct 1997 09:12:11 +0100 (BST) From: Manar Hussain Reply-To: Manar Hussain To: freebsd-ISP@freebsd.org cc: linuxisp@friendly.jeffnet.org Subject: Re: Router Cards? In-Reply-To: <3.0.1.32.19971021182012.0098ad50@bailin.lan> Message-ID: Organisation: Internet Vision MIME-Version: 1.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-isp@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk >To: linuxisp@friendly.jeffnet.org ^^^^^^^^ Hmm >Does any one have any experience or knowledge about the Emerging >Technologies ET/5025x or the SDL Communications WANic or RISCom boards >insofar as their suitabilty as a router is concerned? > >Both companies basically claim that you pop it in either your server or a >spare system and through the wonders of software and technology ... bingo >... instant router. > >Seems like a VERY attractive alternative to a VERY expensive Cisco on the >surface especially for a startup like me. We've been using an ISA based RISCom card for about 18 months now with no problems at all. The driver for it back at the start was a bit ropey so we used Linux but switched to FreeBSD a while back when that was more resolved. Never given us any trouble. We only plug into a 64K line but I wouldn't expect any trouble for anything up to T1 with the current crop of cards you'd be looking at. That said - in terms of price there isn't all that much in it. What's a Cisco 2501 - about $1600. You do get potentially much more flexibility with a unix box though and you could also run services on it (rolling your mail and DNS server with the router into one box the early days of an ISP may be totally viable and sound attractive - you could probably also add a web server on there too if it was reasonably spec'd/setup) Manar