4 Wire over Ethernet

[escomm]

Telex is a bit expensive

Any other reliable solutions suitable for mission critical applications I should be aware of?

[kb4mdz]

JPS NXU-2?

[Bill_G]

Yep. The NXU-2A is a tried a true box. Perfect if you also want E&M. But, for the cost conscious, there is Barix. I've been seeing quite a few broadcasters use these to carry program audio over internet instead of using their STL's.

http://www.barix.com

[d119]

I'd suggest some Cisco routers with VIC2-2E&M cards in them. There are folks here that can help you get it configured. It's cheap, and FAST.

[alex]

I'd suggest some Cisco routers with VIC2-2E&M cards in them. There are folks here that can help you get it configured. It's cheap, and FAST.

If Telex is expensive, Cisco is out of the question.

[515]

These are what we have been looking at:
http://www.tccomm.com/FiberOpticProduct ... tact-to-IP

Haven't tried them yet, though...

[d119]

I'd suggest some Cisco routers with VIC2-2E&M cards in them. There are folks here that can help you get it configured. It's cheap, and FAST.

If Telex is expensive, Cisco is out of the question.

Unless he's good with some used gear...

[alex]

These are what we have been looking at:
http://www.tccomm.com/FiberOpticProduct ... tact-to-IP

Haven't tried them yet, though...

These are excellent. Several in service on dark single mode fiber. They will be going away though with a conversion to Ethernet later this year and kept as spares or to run other non-simulcast channels.

I think their Ethernet products need some work. Wasn't impressed.

Alex

[d119]

Whatever you do, IMHO, stay away from RAD products. Terrible customer service, questionable firmware, and just plain difficult and terrible to work with. In my humble opinion. And I've worked with A LOT of their stuff.

[escomm]

Thank you guys!

[Legacypreservation99]

These are what we have been looking at:
http://www.tccomm.com/FiberOpticProduct ... tact-to-IP

Haven't tried them yet, though...

These are excellent. Several in service on dark single mode fiber. They will be going away though with a conversion to Ethernet later this year and kept as spares or to run other non-simulcast channels.

I think their Ethernet products need some work. Wasn't impressed.

Alex

Why you were not impressed by their Ethernet products? Did they not function as intended?

[alex]

Why you were not impressed by their Ethernet products? Did they not function as intended?

Well, I'll start with simple: I'm a very hard person to impress. I have not put the product (jumboswitch) in service anywhere as of yet and was (and still is in my mind) as being a possible contender...

Knowing that:

- The network monitoring solution wasn't very impressive. I want to see options for redundancy for monitoring systems as they can fail. The system that was mentioned or talked about being setup didn't seem to capture the fact that when something goes wrong it REALLY needs to tell me. It didn't appear I could virtualize it and put it on a high availability application stack (VMWare). Asking for RAID was do-able, but, it wasn't something that was included by default. The basic idea was "here's a desktop all-in-one" that will be your network monitor and that does nothing for me. 1U Rack Server with RAID, dual power supplies, etc., and I'll pay attention. If you are a networking company and don't have this product beefed up a bit it makes me think about the product line again. I'll also say that Cisco Prime was far overkill when I saw that as a solution for what we need as well. I know TC isn't the only vendor struggling with something like this. I had to have the same discussion with a Fire Alarm vendor who wanted to give me a workstation built on a consumer desktop that had to run 24x7 in a dispatch center. No Raid. No dual power supplies. "Oh, that's a problem?!" What about Virtu.... "what's that!?" You get my point.

- I want audio out of two ports from a single source without burning another port. This is done in ~10 lines of code in a Cisco product and can be used to building redundancy in to legacy analog transport. The cost in the TC world was extra ports. If I use extra ports I now have to add in an audio bridge to ensure that I have level and consistent analog audio passing through it. I can probably get away without the bridge, but, I think you see my point.

- I wanted to see fast link recovery times and stats and that was something people were struggling with providing. "It's fast" does not satisfy me as that's subjective at best and I have specifications I need to meet.

- Wanted to see more layer 3 than layer 2 topology. Layer 3 I'd be stuck with OSPF which has longer path recovery times than EIGRP in CISCO does.

- I know a local dealer in the area that supports them and they have a single guy who I think knows the product. What if he goes on vacation? Disagreement with an employer? Etc. If I buy a CISCO, HP, etc., there's a hundred companies/interrogators within a stone throw which can work with and manipulate the system. That includes our IT department (but, that's another discussion).

With all the above - The 8000's are rock solid. If I had the chance to give someone feedback on them:

Amphanol Connectors or at least switch to RJ45 on the cards. Wiring is by far cleaner, but, I can understand not using the Amphanol 50 pin connectors.

4U Rack Shelf's should be modular and be field adjustable by owner. I don't want to think about sending this back to TC - why? We never bought spares so I can't just pack it and ship it.

The generations of cards should be interchangeable. I'd be interested to know if I can add 4x 4 wire cards where there are already 4x2wire cards in a 4RU chassis.

What if I want to add x to y? Nope, buy another chassis & upgrade the cards because they are different generations.

If I could pull a single box card and drop it in a 4RU unit and go to town that gives me a lot of flexibility (but, I get the daughter/master card relationship piece).

Lastly - the folks I spoke with there in person at trade shows over the years and on the phone were solid folks who know their products and what they can do with them. No issues there.

Alex