T1 Cisco 2811 installation/purchasing assistance please

[Calvinatir]

I have ordered a bonded T1 line for a client of mine and will be installing it next week. I was told by the provider that i needed to have a router that could handle multiple T1's. (its a 3.0MB bonded line). It must have 2 CSU/DSU (WIC) cards installed and support the MLPPP protocol. They recommended the Cisco 2811 to do the job.

I am aware that the 2811 from sites like Newegg only comes bare, without any cards installed. So I would need to purchase 2 additional WIC cards. Could anyone point me in the direction on where to purchase this equipment? Should I just use Newegg? Also, a quick installation guide? What is the BEST product(s) to do the job and will I need an additional switch with the 2811?

Thank you for your help.

 

[yg17]

I can't really answer your question since I don't know where to buy it, but I would advise, for your clients sake, to not purchase Cisco gear from Newegg. I bought an 851W router from Newegg, and a week later, it just quit working. Called Newegg to RMA it, they told me to contact Cisco as it's under their warranty. I called Cisco, and they told me to go through the retailer since it was under 30 days old and that Newegg was not an authorized Cisco reseller. (And the people at Cisco seemed rather surprised I was able to purchase this without being a corporation and was using it for home use.....maybe some of us know how to use IOS and would much rather have quality Cisco equipment in our house instead of Linksys and Netgear crap? And yes, I realize the irony of my "quality Cisco equipment" being dead after week ) I called Newegg back and the 3 of us eventually got it worked out and Cisco was able to locate the router's serial number in the database so they knew it was new and still under warranty and RMAed it and sent me a new one, but it took a few weeks. Wasn't a big deal for me as I still had a cheap Netgear that worked, but still annoying nonetheless. Now, if I were a company, and my business depended on a functioning router, I'd be pretty pissed off.

I'd recommend purchasing through an authorized Cisco reseller (who one is, I have no idea, I guess check their website) just for the sake of your client. You should be able to get all of the stuff you need from a reseller (and a service contract, so you get IOS updates and quick turnaround on RMAs)


Also, AFAIK, the 2811 only has 2 Fast Ethernet ports on the back, so yeah, you're probably going to want a switch.

 

[Calvinatir]

2811 fairly easy to setup? It won't take me hours? I'm assuming this should be a pretty easy task. And can I set it up over ethernet or do i need to do it over serial?

 

[yg17]

No idea, I've never set one up before.


You have set up Cisco equipment before, right? Because it's not a GUI interface, it's all command line. If you don't know Cisco IOS, there's no way you'll be able to set this up. And yes, you'll need to use the serial port for the initial setup