ISDN

Midcoast Internet Solutions has some ISDN lines installed into Rockland. We are the first and only in the area to provide this service to our customers. We often suggest ISDN if wireless or DSL is not available.

If your phone company is Verizon, check with us to see if service is available from to your exchange. (costs are extra) Tidewater also has some ISDN in Hope/Union, and TDS has ISDN in Warren.

For customers, Verizon charges an extra $10/month or so for ISDN capabilities. One of the big benefits of ISDN is that it gives you an extra phone line. You can talk, or send and receive faxes while online. Speeds for ISDN are a minimum of 56k both ways. Analog modem technology will have a maximum of 56k one way. To order an ISDN line in Verizonland, call 1-800-get-isdn. For other phone companies, just call the regular customer service number.

Another advantage is that there is no modem negotiation with ISDN. You can sign on almost instantly. No ringing or screeching or waiting.

You can surf the internet at a sweet 56k or 112K with a ISDN voice-over-data connection. For a Verizon charge of a couple of pennies per minute, you can surf at 64k or 128k. Choosing which connect method is a simple init string modification.

To take advantage of the ability to have two lines on an ISDN connection, be sure to get ISDN equipment that has a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) jack, so that you plug in your phone or fax. The equipment needed to utilize ISDN service is only slightly more expensive than a normal 28.8/33.6 modem. The 3com impactIQ ISDN equipment suits that need and we have found it to be very easy to setup. We can help you get one too. For a LAN, we recommend and a USR ISDN Lan-Modem.

Due to the extra line costs for us (you would not want our phone bills), and the new equipment we had to purchase and become familiar with, we will price ISDN services at a modest $10/month more than what you pay now. The gains in convenience and speed justify this cost very easily.