Which one is for you?

You can buy a low-end ISDN router such as the Ascend Communications, Inc. Pipeline 25 for less than $1,200, so why would you spend between $2,000 and $4,000 for one of the products we tested? We came up with several reasons:

Throughput - Many low-end ISDN routers do not support compression, so a product that does provides more than four times the throughput for about three times the price.

Protocol support - You may need to route protocols other than IP and IPX, such as AppleTalk, DECnet and OSI, and support common routing protocols, such as RIP, OSPF and BGP.

Upgradeability - Low-end routers may require you to make upgrades manually via telnet. A better option when you're managing multiple routers is products that use the Trivial FTP protocol.

Ease of hardware configuration.

For an assessment of how well each of these products meets these criteria, see the accompanying story on Network World Fusion.

We recommend testing any ISDN product before putting it into operation; simple performance tests can be illuminating. You should also test devices using your applications in an on-demand connection environment to be sure that the network protocols and applications do not keep the line up more than the minimum time necessary to transfer data.