Ascend Communications commissioned The Tolly Group to benchmark the performance of three remote access concentrators. The Tolly Group evaluated the Ascend MAX 4000 (version 4.6b and 4.6ci22), the Shiva LanRover AccessSwitch (version 4.5) and the U.S. Robotics Total Control Enterprise Network Hub (version 4.1.3). The Tolly Group measured UDP (Universal Datagram Protocol) performance across an ISDN primary rate interface (PRI) connection for all three devices. Additionally, The Tolly Group measured the UDP performance of the Ascend MAX 4000 across a channelized T1 connection.

In the test of analog clients, concentrated onto ISDN, testing showed that the aggregate throughput of the MAX 4000 was the closest to the theoretical maximum performance limit of the three remote access con- centrators evaluated. Testing also showed that the performance of the Ascend MAX 4000 across an ISDN PRI connection and a channelized T1 connection was virtually the same. Furthermore, the performance recorded for the Ascend MAX 4000 running version 4.6ci22 and version 4.6b was virtually identical.