Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!newstop!exodus!randolph
From: randolph@cognito.Eng.Sun.COM (Randolph Fritz)
Newsgroups: comp.org.eff.talk
Subject: Access to the electronic frontier: ISDN
Message-ID: <9508@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 10 Mar 91 01:50:49 GMT
Sender: news@exodus.Eng.Sun.COM
Organization: St. Dismas Infirmary for the Incurably Informed
Lines: 61

I'd like to talk about another area of politics which I hope is of
interest to the readers of this groups: the politics of public
data communications services.

So far, all our high-speed data services are both very expensive and
very limited in interconnection.  I can, for instance, order 64 Kbps
(or faster) private circuits to interconnect any chosen points within
the USA, and within most of Europe.  I can also, if I meet the
criteria, get an NSFnet connection at very high expense and reach
academic and a small number of commericial users.  Or, I can use a
voice-band modem (now up to 9600 bps) to connect to most of the USA.

All of these services have different problems: the high-speed services
reach very few people and are exclusive besides; the low-speed
services are widespread, but slow.

It turns out that existing telephone circuits can be used to provide
wide-spread 64 kpbs services; this is what the telephone companies
call Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN).  Taking advantage of
the vast amount of transmission facilities already in place for
digitized voice, ISDN offers the possibility of inexpensive,
widespread medium-speed services to most of the USA and Europe.  The
potentials are enormous: having the kind of performance we now expect
only from expensive private networks available publicly, and at prices
perhaps twice that of voice telephone services -- very cheaply, in
other words.

In Europe, the government-run telephone companies are moving rapidly
to offer ISDN.  In the USA things aren't going nearly so smoothly.
Here in California, ISDN is trial-tariffed as a Centrex service and
from my brief discussions with Pacific Bell representatives it appears
that Pacific Bell is more interested in selling this service to their
largest users -- who are actually the ones who have the least use for
it -- than to the vast range of small-to-medium-size business and
residential users, who are the people who have the most use for it.
On the other hand, I have heard Pacific Bell representatives claim
that the California Public Utilities Commission is reluctant to
authorize the needed capital expenditure, which after all has to come
out of someone's telephone bill.  There are also some purely technical
problems: so far ISDN switching software written by ATT does not talk
to ISDN switching software written by Northern Telecomm, though both
companies are planning on making their switches compatible eventually.

So what I'd like to see would be some effort to get ISDN service
tariffed and widely available, at least within our biggest computing
metropoli: say Boston, the SF Bay Area, LA, New York.  The effort
would have to be two-pronged: on the one hand, the telephone companies
have to be persuaded that offering this service widely would be
profitable and, on the other hand, the state public utilty commissions
(and perhaps the Federal Communications Commission as well) would have
to be persuaded that this is a service in the public interest.

What do you think?  Do you agree that this is a worthwhile idea, and
one worth pursuing?  Does the EFF perhaps feel that this might be an
area worth exploring, and perhaps worth organizing support for?

   nd t
 ou    ui
R Press  T  __Randolph Fritz  sun!cognito.eng!randolph || randolph@eng.sun.com
 ou    ui     Mountain View, California, North America, Earth
   nd t