ISDN with stretch, Madge Networks' solution could take ISDN out to the country

A new line of ISDN switches could help carriers extend their services to suburban and rural customers without upgrading central office equipment or back-hauling ISDN calls.

Madge Networks' new Edge Switching Node family of products is targeted at carriers hoping to meet demand for ISDN both in remote areas and in existing ISDN markets where demand has outstripped capacity.

"There's been a massive growth in the [small office, home office] market that's helped drive the need for ISDN," said Gregory Michel, product manager of the WAN Access Division at the San Jose-based Madge. "The price of upgrading central office switching equipment to ISDN has meant that users in more remote areas - who are logically the most likely to look for a telecommuting service - haven't had access to ISDN.

The Madge solution is designed to provide an alternative to both CO upgrades and backhauling, or using T-1 lines and channel banks to funnel ISDN traffic to the nearest ISDN-enabled CO.

The Edge Switching Nodes function as a switch that can be collocated in the CO or in an Internet point of presence alongside the main Class 5 switch. "The units can act as 'front ends' for the primary CO equipment," Michel said. "In that role, they may also be used to ease the overloading of the switches by grooming and routing traffic before it gets to the switch.

The series consists of modular slotted hubs, the ESN 1000 and the ESN 2000, which accept six and 20 network interface modules, respectively. These modules may include system controllers, quad T-1/primary rate ISDN network trunk cards and octal basic rate ISDN network port cards. Depending on whether a T-1 or primary rate ISDN trunk connection is available, the system can support 11 or 12 non-blocking basic rate ISDN lines per trunk.

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