Hey guys,

My company is looking to get into doing some audio post work, and we're going to get an ISDN line and codec.  We have a parter company in Germany and they have offered to loan us a codec (unknown make and model at the moment) for us to use.  My first thought is that there's no way that it will work over here.  But after reading some about the inner workings of ISDN, there don't seem to be major differences in the way ISDN works between here and there.  Though, i get the feeling like there's some details that i havn't seen that make my first thoughts true.  Was just wondering if anybody had any insight into this somewhat unique situation!

Thanks!

Bryan

Hello Bryan,

There are two distinct things you need to look out for -

1) The ISDN protocol used. In Europe the ISDN protocol that is used is the DSS1 protocol, while in the USA there are a number of other protocols in use, like 5ESS and NI-1 (this depends on your ISDN provider in the USA). It is important that the codec you loan does indeed support the correct ISDN protocol.

2) In Europe ISDN lines are almost always terminated by the ISDN provider with an NT-1. The ISDN devices used in Europe therefore expect to connect to an NT-1. In the USA the provider does usually NOT provide the NT-1 termination. It is very likely that you will need to use an NT-1 between the European codec and the USA ISDN line. You may need to talk to your ISDN provider about this.

Hope this helps!

Best regards,

Edwin
     

wrote on Nov 20^th, 2008 at 12:05pm:

Hope this helps! Best regards, Edwin

Huge help!  Thanks so much Edwin!