MENLO PARK, Calif., Dec. 6, 1993 -- Support for National ISDN-1 (NI-1),a signaling specification proposed by Bellcore that has emerged as a defacto industry standard for North America, is now available on CiscoSystems' Cisco 3000 internetwork routers.
National ISDN-1 support will be provided concurrently with the otherISDN signaling schemes the Cisco 3000 already supports in variousgeographic markets: AT&T's 5E6 ISDN signaling for its 5ESS switch andNorthern Telecom's BCS34 ISDN signaling for its DMS-100 switch (UnitedStates), VN2 and VN3 ISDN signaling (France), 1TR6 ISDN signaling(Germany), INS-64 ISDN signaling (Japan) and NET3 ISDN signaling (EuropeanISDN standard).
Sunil Dhar, Cisco product marketing manager, said, "Today'sannouncement will enable broader remote access routing capability for ISDNusers. The Cisco 3000 is not only the first multiprotocol router to supportNational ISDN-1, but also the first to be a truly global ISDN router. TheNational ISDN-1 standard will enable our routers to interoperate with allISDN switch vendors who currently support it or have plans to do so in thefuture.
"In the U.S. the addition of National ISDN-1 will allow us to deployour routers in any switching center, regardless of the signaling standardthe switch supports," Dhar added. "This is particularly important forCanada, where National ISDN-1 is already the mandated standard. Cisco'sCanadian customers will for the first time have a router that providesinternetworking capability across [telecommunications carrier] Stentor'sMicrolink ISDN services."
Beverley Taylor, ISDN product manager for Ottawa-based Stentor, said,"We are very pleased to see Cisco add National ISDN-1 support to its routerfamily. Our customers will now be able to take advantage of our Microlinkservice using Cisco products, gaining a wider range of internetworkconnectivity options than ever before."
The Cisco 3000 ISDN router, the first multiprotocol router to integratea terminal adapter for direct connection to an ISDN circuit-switchednetwork, is a single-board router with one Ethernet or Token Ring port, twoserial ports and one ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI). An ISDN BRI supportsone 16-Kbps signaling (D) channel for control information between therouter and the ISDN switch and two 64-Kbps data (B) channels for data to besent through the ISDN network. The Cisco 3000 can connect remote Ethernetor Token Ring LANs running TCP/IP, IPX, SNA and all of the other protocolsover ISDN BRI lines to another ISDN router or to a larger Cisco backbonerouter at a distant site.
ISDN, or Integrated Services Digital Network, is an internationalstandard for transmitting digitized voice, data, text, graphics, music andvideo over existing telephone wiring.
National ISDN-1 support is available immediately as a core part of theCisco 3000 ISDN router software. The National ISDN-1 license fee is $450per router.
