Help with ISDN and Telephone lines please

[Matth]

Sorry I posted this on the welcome forum not good for a newby but here goes again....

I wonder if anyone could either help me with the following problem or direct me to a web site/ forum which might be able to help.

I work in a private house in the UK and we currently run a ISDN system with 8 lines. Though a Ericsson telephone system.
We feel this maybe a little bit of an over kill and would like to reduce this down.
I need to try and understand the basic principles of ISDN and why if at all we need it to run our system.

Do we need ISDN to run this ericsson system?
If not can we get cancel all ISDN lines?

If we do need ISDN how many lines do we need?

Then how do we establish which lines to take off?

We have a bank of 20 DD numbers within the system. We have 14 phones using 2 numbers,1 faxline, Video Conferance and a dial in number for service.
Our computer data system is run on a seperate system.


Any assistantance would be great.


thanks

[dave87]

As far as I know, the ISDN lines are used to carry more than 1 phoneline, and as they are digital, at a better (or comparable) quality. By the sounds of it you are using a Digital Hybrid system (parents office uses a similar Panasonic system).

In all honesty, your best bet is to phone your telecoms provider, or if not, the person/company that installed it, and ask them what the best options for change are

Hope this helps,

Dave

(also posted in the welcome forum)

[Matth]

Thanks Dave,

I have tried this Ericsson do not support the telephone system any more as it is 8 years old and the guy who did know about it has left the company and there is no one else who can or wants to help!

[d3fiant]

post more info on the specs of the call system, sure a few google-ites here fancy a challenge

[peterb]

Ifyou are using video conferencing externally, that would explain teh 8 ISDN lines. Each ISDN line has a bandwidth of 64K - so bonding all 8 together gives you a total bandwidth of 512K - which is about right for video conferencing. In practice you may find that only 6 lines are bonded (giving 384K - about the minimum you can get away with) leaving two lines free for voice calls etc.