If you think about to buy an Ascend / Lucent MAX
or any other router, here are some key questions:
(If you like to get some hints for ebay.com, look here.)
What do you want to do with it :
- Do you need it for training or for business / production ?
- Do you need nailed / leased lines E1 (T1) / E3 (T3) ?
- If yes, how many ?
- Do you need dial-in with E1 (T1) / E3 (T3) ?
- If yes, how many ISDN channels ?
- Do you need dial-in with modems ?
- If yes, how many ? (V.90 or V.92)
- Do you need dial-out for mass faxes 14.4 kbit analog ?
- If yes, how many lines simultanous ?
- Do you like to establish VOIP services ?
MAXen can be fit with digital Modems. There are many software solutions, to create more benefits with an E1 / 30 channel faxsystem than 30 single faxmodems.
The MAX4000´s are temperature sensitive with too many addon boards, check the overheating page and think about a modification of the fans. As from our experience, if you keep a MAX4000 cool, you have an unbeatable price range about and below 1200 dollars for a very well working unit (from a serious source).
A MAX 2000 E1 can handle one E1, that are 30 HDSL channels and up to 30 modems
A MAX 4000 E1 can handle 60 HDSL channels without extra boards, and up to 120 with two extra HDSL boards, but you should stop at 96 modems, its built for a maximum of 4 x T1 = 4 x 25.
A MAX 6000 E1 can fully handle all 120 HDSL channels from the beginning with a total of 6 x 16 S56 modems and thats the maximum.
You can stack some MAX 6000, but currently one MAX TNT does a much better job with up to 756 ISDN or modem channels. And the MAX TNT has become affordable. Ist below 6000 dollars now.
For the E1 world,
we have MAX 1800 BRI-U and BRI-S as well as MAX 2000-E1, MAX 4000-E1 and MAX 6000-E1 available for rent (German speaking countires only) or for sale (worldwide).