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nickdixon · Jun 20, 2003, 05:58 PM

My ISP offers a great 128k ISDN package - but doesn't support MAC! The web site insists you have to download a dialler, which is not available for MAC... I assume I am screwed??

If for some reason I can use it, I was hoping to do the following...

Connect the ISDN modem (I think it'll be USB) into my Airport Extreme Base station and surf the net from my iBook. Is this possible? Anything else I need to buy or do?

How would I connect without this dialler?

Any help/advice/comments would be much appreciated.

Nick

ghporter · Jun 20, 2003, 06:06 PM

What's the ISP, and where are you? It makes a difference-often ISPs say they "don't support Macs" when that just means they won't provide tech support for issues you run into that are Mac-specific.

nickdixon · Jun 20, 2003, 06:15 PM

I'm in the UK, it's BT Internet...

http://www.bt.com/btmidband

howardm4 · Jun 28, 2003, 07:53 AM

from the looks of it, you should be able to do
it.

The BT Access Box has some digital inputs
so it can act as a simple U/ST interface
and you'd have to provide some sort of
ISDN frontend or terminal adaptor that
connects between the ethernet i/f on the
mac and the digital input of the Access Box.

nickdixon · Jun 29, 2003, 11:48 AM

Thanks for that. I'm kinda knew to this, so can you explain something for me?

At the moment, I have broadband set up with my Airport Base Station and iBook (Sadly, it's not available where I'm moving...). Right now, as soon as I open my iBook the Airport card gets the signal and I'm online immediately.

However, with ISDN I obviously have to dial up to make a connection. Can I do this wirelessly through the airport? Or will my computer detect when I need to go online and dial up automatically via the airport?

Hope this makes sense!

Nick

Chimpmaster · Jun 30, 2003, 08:51 PM

Originally posted by nickdixon:
My ISP offers a great 128k ISDN package - but doesn't support MAC! The web site insists you have to download a dialler, which is not available for MAC... I assume I am screwed??

If for some reason I can use it, I was hoping to do the following...

Connect the ISDN modem (I think it'll be USB) into my Airport Extreme Base station and surf the net from my iBook. Is this possible? Anything else I need to buy or do?

How would I connect without this dialler?

Any help/advice/comments would be much appreciated.

Nick

Natively, apple airport does not support isdn. What you need to do is convert your isdn protocol into a tcp/ip ethernet protocol.

A lot of this will depend on the current device you are using to terminate your isdn connection. There are proboably 3 scenarios.

1) You have a terminal adaptor like me. It will be connected to the wall by a u interface, and your phone lines will also run into it and out of it. It should have an s/t interface which you can use to run an orange isdn cable from the terminal adaptor to a router (such as a cisco 761 or 801). YOu can the plug the router directly into the base station via ethernet. THe router will need to be configured correctly, and then it will dial automaticallyout when you try and transfer data (eg open a browser), share the connection via the airport device and automatically turn off when you are idle for a prescribed time, eg 5 minutes.

2) You will have a router like a cisco 803 or a netgear 338 instead of a terminal adaptor. THis is ideal because you can leave it in place, and directly connect the base station to it.

3) YOu will have some kind of proprietary modem that is run by a specific driver (sounds like this is you). If this device has a wan port, you can share your connection directly with the base station via an ethernet cable. If it doesnt, you need to either replace it with one of the above scenarios, or use it as is, and run an ethernet cable back out of your mac and into the base station. In this manner, you use the base station as a bridge, and it still sends data wirelessly and receives it form any clients, but it shares the connection via ethernet from the pc rather than directly from the connection. You use internet sharing and click on to share via airport and ethernet in system preferences.

The only problem with this model is that your mac will have to be on to share the connection. This is why a router is better as it shares the connection itself, and you dont need a connected desktop to act as a server for sharing the connection.

With the bridging model, you dont actually need a base station, you can just share form one airport card to another (i do this). There is no disadvantage as themac has to be on anyway.

But as i said, if you are wanting to share the connection via airport without using a desktop machine that is always on as a server, you really need to buy a router....