What alternatives are there to access servers?
Before the current age of the access server, you needed modems, telephone lines and one or more multi-port serial cards or terminal servers. Some of this information is now redundant; as I said, if you’re serious about this business, you’ll get access server systems like the ones described above. However, access servers have one major disadvantage: The phone company often charges extra for the incoming T1 connections. (These connections wrap together 24 voice lines per T1; they are not in any way related to the T1 you need to talk to your upstream provider. They’re the same service from the phone company’s point of view, but no, you can’t use part of a T1 for dialup lines and another part for your upstream connection). In cases where you have a recalcitrent phone company with unreasonable charge for these T1s, you may wind up using modems anyway. In reality, you shouldn’t, because modems are so tough to manage past a certain (small) initial number. But to start up, you may have to. No
