Solved: NM-1A-T3/E3 - need serial not ATM

wsanders1 · ‎07-11-2010

Were we sold the wrong product? We installed 2 NM-1A-T3/E3 cards in our 3845, upgraded to c3845-entservicesk9-mz.124-24.T3.bin, but the interfaces show up as ATMX/0 instead of serialX/0.

We need to set up frame relay encapsulation. I can't find ay examples that show how to set this up on a ATM interface (actually it's not possible) and I don't see any current production T3 cards available for the 3845 other than the "non-A" NM-1-T3/E3 (unless the old 7000-series T3 WICs are recommended for this configuration.) Or were we sold a NM-1A-T3/E3 instead of a NM-1-T3/E3, which I was given to understand has been superceded by the NM-1A-T3/E3?

Did we buy the wrong hardware? Is it even possible to set up a T3 with frame relay encapsulation on a 3845?

Thanks,

-w

Giuseppe Larosa · ‎07-11-2010

Hello Wsanders,

you have received the "wrong hardware": however, be aware that FR and ATM PVCs can interwork using FR-ATM interworking this job can be done by the WAN provider.

If it is so, you have high probability to be able to use these network modules if a SP network is in the middle.

For example one of my customer had a backup network with central sites connected via ATM interfaces and remote sites using serial interfaces with FR encapsulation.

An ATM PVC is identified by vpi/vci values instead only of a single DLCI value but this is not a problem with service interworking.

see

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk39/tk53/technologies_configuration_example09186a0080094588.shtml

Hope to help

Giuseppe

View solution in original post

Giuseppe Larosa · ‎07-11-2010

Hello Wsanders,

you have received the "wrong hardware": however, be aware that FR and ATM PVCs can interwork using FR-ATM interworking this job can be done by the WAN provider.

If it is so, you have high probability to be able to use these network modules if a SP network is in the middle.

For example one of my customer had a backup network with central sites connected via ATM interfaces and remote sites using serial interfaces with FR encapsulation.

An ATM PVC is identified by vpi/vci values instead only of a single DLCI value but this is not a problem with service interworking.

see

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk39/tk53/technologies_configuration_example09186a0080094588.shtml

Hope to help

Giuseppe

wsanders1 · ‎07-11-2010

Thanks, I suspected this after doing some searching around. We were given the impression that the "NM-1A-T3/E3" simply superceded the "NM-1-T3/E3", which does not seem to be available anymore. What happens when you let big computer vendors sell Cisco equipment with untrained sales people ...

Not sure if the SP can provide FRF.8 for us within the tariffs they are forced to obey. Even though the SONET network they are splitting our T3's off of is only three feet away from our router. The could just as easily give us an ATM PVC or Ethernet MAN, but can't (for a reasonable price. We were quoted $16K/mo for 100mbit MAN, for example.)

-w