19 Aug 2006
All Hail Cisco!

Got my new Cisco 804 ISDN router today, via FedX Ground. And all I can say is: wow! This is a professional product, and it shows.

For the first time since we've had ISDN service (going on 6 years) we have time and date stamps available for Caller ID. Netgear routers just didn't pass the information, nor would they display it themselves. Our phones now actually pick up the time from the router - also a first.

The router actually hangs up the line correctly when a caller disconnects: preventing that annoying "bzzzt bzzzt bzzzt" noise for 30 seconds at the end of every answering machine message. And the answering machine works again - it's been down for the past week since we had to install our backup router.

This device also apparently senses the availability of compression technology, and automatically avails itself of it. Most pages load faster now with one channel in operation than they used to do with both lines humming.

The setup program automatically detected the central office switch type and our SPIDs - basically all I had to manually enter was my ISP phone number, username and password. It even detected our local network correctly (like our Macs do with Rendezvous)and set up the nameservers and DHCP server correctly. All in all setup and configuration took less than 30 minutes, and most of that time was letting the router test the connection and make sure everything worked.

About the only deficiency is the monitoring program - it could be a bit meatier, but hey! it works.

And the price was right, too. I paid a whopping $73 for this beauty - eBay has it's uses after all.

We're on line for real again, and we actually have useful phone service. Now if we can just keep the lightening away ...

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