From: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!unc!brl-bmd!TELECOM@Usc-Eclb.ARPA Newsgroups: fa.telecom Title: TELECOM Digest V3 #17 Article-I.D.: brl-bmd.529 Posted: Thu Mar 24 19:05:07 1983 Received: Fri Mar 25 22:35:50 1983 TELECOM AM Digest Thursday, 24 March 1983 Volume 3 : Issue 17 Today's Topics: Digital Service Into The Home Home Digital Data Services KP FWD And RING FWD, Anyone? Phone Company Line Utilization : Voice VS. Data Why Go Measured? - Fewer Interruptions DEMON Dialer(r) Slow Digital Connection pricing Query Re Modem-Less Data Communication ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: 16 Mar 83 23:07:10 PST (Wed) From: sun!gnu (John Gilmore) Full-Name: John Gilmore Subject: Digital service into the home I recently got a report of hearings held by the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. The chairman, Bob Packwood of Oregon, wants to extend First Amendment protection to electronic media, including broadcast TV, cable, radio, as well as e.g. Washington Post on Teletext. Part of the argument is that spectrum space is not the scarce resource it was originally thought to be. In that vein the committee heard testimony from various people, one of whom was Dr. Solomon J. Buchsbaum, executive VP of Bell Labs. Two paragraphs of his testominy relate to digital phone connections to homes: "Although services such as this [digital voice, fax, video, etc -- JCG] are not yet widely available, the technology to provide them exists. Their deployment awaits market opportunities and the availability of capital. "In 1970, about 40 million of the 60 million lines in the Bell System could have supported 56 kilobits/second digital capability, and, in 1980, 50 million lines. By 1990, it is expected that as many as 110 million of an expected 130 million lines will have access to 56 or 64 kilobits/second capability." Oops, there's one earlier relevant paragraph: "Today's integrated circuit technology is making it economical to place electronics in the local loop -- the pair of wires connecting the telephone subscriber to the telephone company's switching center. The introduction of electronics leads to exciting new capabilities through the use of digital carrier facilities, similar to T-carrier, in the loop. Originally, digital systems were used to reduce the number of physical wire pairs required to serve several customers; now they also provide the means to bring digital transmission directly to the customer premises." You, too, can get this report by writing to: Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Washington DC 20510 and asking for the hearings on "Electronic Media and the First Amendment". There's a lot of interesting reading in there. John Gilmore, Sun Microsystems ------------------------------ Date: Thu Mar 17 1983 22:19:00-PST From: Lauren Weinstein Return-Path: Subject: home digital data services Just to clarify the issue -- there are certainly a few home digital data "testbeds" that will be appearing in the near future. However, I don't believe that any of these are being realistically priced, and so I'll stand by my statement that when data services become generally available, they will be priced for businesses with substantial data needs, not the home user. Regardless of what the companies may claim, testbed services are almost never priced in a realistic manner and are usually heavily subsidized by the company conducting the "tests". --- Regarding radio techniques: there are a number of companies planning to offer radio-based data services, mostly using MDS and other microwave technologies. All of the plans that I have seen to date are oriented toward businesses with lotsa bucks. ***Error on net connection*** {