As per the title, I have a load of old networking gear from an old corporate setup, and I need to know what it does, and if it is of any use before it gets binned. Back-story One of my colleagues was sent to one of our old offices that had been shutdown to clear everything that was owned by the company out before the key were handed back to the building’s owners. Among all of the usual office stuff was a server cabinet, a guy from our IT department took all of the stuff that they wanted (the server and all of the good switches), and the rest was left for us to clear. I have been able to identify most of the items, but I am struggling with working out what some of the things do, and whether they are still any use or to scrap them. The components are as follows: BT Access SDH - NTE 4U/7A I think that this is something to do with combining multiple old ISDN lines to give greater speed/bandwidth. BT LAN/SAN Extension Services – FBTCHISR I think that this is something to do with connecting two offices up to 25km apart, via a fibre optic link. BT Norstar ATA2 I think that this is an old ISDN modem; there are currently 4 I have found. Nortel – Business Communications Manager BCM400 I believe that this is some form of controller for IP phones, but how it works is beyond me. Then there is two 1U sized things that have no make or model number on them, but only say “Caution: only place one NTE on shelf”. They have a number of fibre optic cables coming into and out of them and connection them together. I believe that they are just to do with the BT LAN/SAN Extension Services – FBTCHISR and are just for termination the exterior fibre optic cable and relaying the signal along an interior fibre optic cable. If any of you guys know what any of this stuff is used for please let me know, I could do with clearing it all out of my office to make space, but I don’t want to throw away something that is still useful. Thanks in advance. John
Original post edited to include photos. Sorry about the bad crops, I took the photos in the office, and I didn't think work would appreciate me posting images of the office on the internet.
