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RE: (ASCEND) TNT Dropping ISDN 2nd Channels


I can share the frustration that you are currently having since it 
appears that the TNT box is plagued with bugs. We have been battling
problems with the max4048's and the 56kbs when you try to use
the box for both analog and isdn. The code released by Ascend
after 5.0Ap10 broke  ISDN and it is now several months later and
Ascend has not been able to fix it. The problem  causes a "c=2 p=10"
for ISDN calls at random times, and the only solution is to reboot the box
or wait from one 1/2 hour to and 2 hours for the box to get out of
the jam. In the mean time no other ISDN calls can come in. Ascend was
willing to lends us a TNT until a possible  solution could be found for
the ISDN problems. This sounded like a good gesture, but as it turns out
it was a complete disaster. 

Here is what we found out so far for the TNT.

	1. The TNT is sold as a high density box, but one of the
	major problems is that if a customer's ISDN channel ends up
	in one of the HDLC cards and the 2nd ISDN channel ends up
	on the 2nd HDLC card then the MPP will not work. This pretty much
	renders this box useless as a high density box. So in theory
	this box is only good for the max of 192 ISND calls. 

	2. According to ascend the TNT HDLC seem to fall apart around
	50 or so ISDN connections per HDLC, so Ascend shipped us the
	the TNT with 2 HDLC cards, yet because of the above problem
	this is pretty much useless. 

	3. The Rip protocol is broken and drops routes for the dialup
	users. 

	4. An to top it off after running for 3 days one of the HDLC
	bit the dust. 

	5. Now to add insult to injury, not even the manual in their 
	home page or the printed manual is correct. The index is 
	all screwed up, and points to pages that do not exist in the
	manual.


After this fiasco with the TNT, our users are ready to hang us, so 
we decided to remove all of the 56kbs modems out of the 4048's and 4004,
ask Ascend to send us some of the old v.34 modems, and revert back to 
the release of 5.0Ap10. This has brought some sanity back, but 
a major advertizing campain about 56kbs is now out the door. 

For those that are looking to buy a TNT my STRONG recommendation is
too look else where, since it is clear that Ascend does not have the
capability to perform the simplest quality assurance on their product
or even their manual. I'm no network guru, but if I'm able to discover
such problems in less than 2 days I wonder what kind of testing does
Ascend perform on their products. If on the other hand they know
ahead of such problems, why don't they just publish them ahead of time
so people like us do not spend days trying to figure this mess. 
Ascend should be ashamed of such a lousy product. 

One hell of a frustrated customer who is ready to kick the Ascend products
out the door.  

George


On Wed, 22 Oct 1997, Frank Nowling wrote:

> The Saga Continues....
> 
> After a second call to ascend tech support on this issue, we were told that 
> we have misconfigured radius. (NOT!)
> 
> After insisting that the tech go talk to an engineer, we get to the heart 
> of the issue - Don't use 1.3ap6 for ISDN calls. We're now told that this is 
> a "known issue". When will a fix be available? 10-15 days.
> 
> What about support for our new 56K cards?  Move the ISDN folks off of the 
> TNT and just use the TNT for 56k.
> 
> We get these answers not that many days after being told that 1.3ap6 is 
> "the most stable version of the TNT software yet"
> 
> Folks, this is getting really old.  This is not first time that one part of 
> tech support gives us a line of BS, only to get a "this is a known issue" 
> after insisting that our problems get further up the support food chain. 
>  If the techs don't know, they need to admit it. Every "known issue" needs 
> to be known by all the tech staff not just the high priests in the 
> engineering tower.
> 
> Frank
> 
> On Tuesday, October 21, 1997 2:08 PM, Frank Nowling 
> [SMTP:frankn@netropolis.net] wrote:
> : Recently we upgraded our TNT from v1.3ap2 to v1.3ap6.  Since then we have 
> : noticed that the 2nd channels on incoming ISDN connections are getting
> : dumped with a cause=2 progress=60 host=0.0.0.0.
> [snip]
> 
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> 

==============================================================================

		B A Y   A R E A   I N T E R N E T   S O L U T I O N S

George E. Navas   		navas@bayarea.net
Voice: (408)260-5000  		Fax:(408)260-5003 	http://www.bayarea.net
==============================================================================


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