Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ucbvax!pasteur!trinity!max
From: max@trinity.uucp (Max Hauser)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Home Automation Interest?
Summary: More questions
Keywords: home automation, X-10, home-bus, integration
Message-ID: <221@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu>
Date: 17 Jan 88 07:40:27 GMT
References: <1056@percival.UUCP>
Sender: news@pasteur.Berkeley.Edu
Reply-To: max@trinity.UUCP (Max Hauser)
Organization: UC Berkeley
Lines: 64

Now I am really confused.

In article <1056@percival.UUCP> gary@percival.UUCP (Gary Wells) writes:
>
> In article 1818 of comp.misc Max Hauser writes: 
> 
> > [Wondering about applicability of Philips DDB and the ISDN
> > to home automation]
> 
> I've never even heard of the DDB, but I do know a little about ISDN.  It is
> obvious from the above comment that Mr. Hauser knows nothing about ISDN
> (no offense, most people don't yet).  

This may be obvious to Gary but it's still not obvious to me. 
I could have mentioned all of the information that Gary did, basic
purpose of ISDN over copper pairs, the 2B+D residential service,
and so forth, since I've been reading about ISDN for several years
and in 1986 I designed an oversampling A/D converter chip for it.
However, this didn't seem germane to my question. Perhaps, as Joel
Cairo said in The Maltese Falcon, I expressed myself badly.

I will reiterate that I don't consider myself "familiar" with ISDN,
and that I wondered whether "even ISDN" could be relevant to
home automation. My reasoning, which clearly I'd better make explicit
this time, is that ISDN of course puts large bit rates, closer to
theoretical channel capacity, on copper wires that connect to the
home. Can the availability of these high-bit-rate paths -- both
within the residence and to the central office -- facilitate home
automation? If not, could the standards and low-cost technology
developed for ISDN perhaps still serve communication within the home,
through another electrical path besides the telephone wiring?

The telephone wiring in many cases already permeates the residence,
and would seem (in my offhand speculation) a natural vehicle for 
control signals, as power lines are in carrier-current systems.
These might employ some of the data rate that the ISDN modems
were designed to convey between residence and CO. Moreover, 
whether or not any local communication within the home exploits
the ISDN equipment or principles, might not the automated home
want to talk to a distant site through a high-bit-rate channel?

In particular, communications visionaries have been speaking for
years about alternative uses for the gross ISDN bit rate, such as 
realizing only one 64 kb/s channel for actual voice, and using the
remainder for high-data-rate services. Anyone wanting to take this 
notion further, or to consider exploiting ISDN for intraresidence
communication, would have to be well conversant -- in my earlier
terminology, familiar -- with the original ISDN in some detail.

Since Gary doesn't see likely relevance of ISDN to home control,
does anyone else?

(BTW if anyone wants references to the ISDN basics and standards,
I have IEEE materials and can perhaps cite them).

(BTW Gary -- "In article 1818 of comp.misc", as above, is poor
form -- tell your system administrator about it.)

Max W. Hauser, engineer enthusiastic and curmudgeon bombastic

   UUCP: ...{!decvax}!ucbvax!eros!max
   Internet: max@eros.berkeley.edu
   Some numbers (numbers are big on the net, in signature lines):
      (415) 642-6666; 6926323; 25653; P1-12-20075; 4,435,655