ISDN vs ADSL

eventually

Please can someone tell me in laymans terms what the difference is between ISDN and ADSL.

I use a wireless router to connect to the internet and have ADSL 'boxes' going into every phone line. I need to connect to an organisation using my laptop but their paper work says dial up needs to be via ISDN.

What would I need to do to be ISDN enabled?

Thanks

Gallstones

ISDN is a form of digital system used for telephone calls and data, in case of the internet it was mostly used in the late 90s/2000s and is not available from BT anymore.

fwor

Gallstones wrote: »

is not available from BT anymore.

Are you sure about that?

Both ISDN2e and ISDN30 variants appear to still be available from BT and a number of their competitors - though they are classed as business services and so do not appear in the residential product catalogues.

crackerberry

fwor wrote: »

Are you sure about that?

Both ISDN2e and ISDN30 variants appear to still be available from BT and a number of their competitors - though they are classed as business services and so do not appear in the residential product catalogues.

They're still available and widely used - they're just the digital form of landlines.

I didn't know BT had withdrawn this for residential customers. Shame, because my ISDN2 years ago worked as well or better at 128k than my (upto) 8mb broadband ever has.

If your company wants you to have ISDN2 at home - ask them to arrange for the installation in their name. They can still arrange for the bill for that to go direct to you (if they want you to pay it and claim it back that is).

You will probably need to get an ISDN card for your laptop/PC too.

kwikbreaks

You need to check if ISDN is the only way to connect to them. The odds are that these days they also have a more uptodate alternative as well (typically via a VPN over your ADSL connection)

Gallstones

Sorry I was refering too BT homehighway for internet use

50Twuncle

You used to be able to double up 2 lines to get 256K - Don't know whether this is still possible
But why on earth would you want ISDN ?
You pay much MUCH more and the speed is "negligible" compared to a decent ADSL connection....
I would check that VPN is not meant rather than ISDN.