ISDN connections into KCCS's Primary rate ISDN are now starting to sell like hot cakes. Since KCCS had its PRI set up with Centrex (after several attempts by Telecom staff over two weeks who managed to get it all together on 15 September) with a Basic Business Group ID being assigned by Telecom, there has been almost an avalanche of existing DDS users as well as new users wanting a connection to KCCS.

With a BBG extension from KCCS the cost of an isdn connection per month in Telecom charges is $120 plus a small centrex charge. There is then no per minute call charges. Since KCCS's PRI ISDN terminates at the Mayoral drive exchange in the Central Business District of Auckland this has allowed KCCS to take advantage of Centrex ISDN connections for customers located in the Auckland CBD. For those converting from MDDS this will represent a significant saving in Telecom monthly charges. For new connections this represents an extremely low cost for a digital 64Kbit connection. KCCS charges per month start at $400 and this includes the rental of an ISDN channel in KCCS's PRI plus all New Zealand traffic is free. There will be no additional charges for International traffic if the total volumes are fairly low each month. Where international access is essential then a flate rate charge set for 3 months will be negociated based on international bandwidth requirements.

Paul Kendall of Orion Systems was the first to successfully connect, using a Cisco 1003 router to connect to KCCS's Cisco 4500. A Centrex BBG extension number was issued to Orion for one of their existing Basic Rate ISDN and within a short while Paul had the connection up and moving data.
Within a few days of this seven other companies all had Centrex ISDN connection to KCCS. Four were existing KCCS customers with MDDS and three were new customers.
There are twelve more connections in the pipeline and these are being connected as ISDN routers are obtained and BBG extensions numbers are allocated.
At this rate the 30 available channels will soon all be allocated, they are mapped out so that 25 channels will used one per customer. The remaining five will be used as needed to provide additional bandwidth on demand when any single link exceeds 91% loading.
Cisco STAC and PREDICTOR compression will be supported where there is a router at the customer site that can support compression.
So far Centrex ISDN connections have been fully tested and implemented through to KCCS's Cisco router using routers at customer sites from:
Cisco - 1003, 2503, 2504 and 4000 models
Motorola - Vanguard 311
Securicor 3Net - ACE 1870