Xref: utzoo talk.politics.misc:20148 comp.protocols.iso:195 comp.std.internat:441
Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!xanth!ukma!husc6!m2c!jjmhome!cpoint!martillo
From: martillo@cpoint.UUCP (Joacim Martillo)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,comp.protocols.iso,comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: ISDN & the Police State
Message-ID: <1960@cpoint.UUCP>
Date: 11 Jan 89 23:59:56 GMT
References: <1943@cpoint.UUCP> <5291@pdn.UUCP>
Reply-To: martillo@cpoint.UUCP (Joacim Martillo)
Organization: Clearpoint Research Corp., Hopkinton Mass.
Lines: 42

In article <5291@pdn.UUCP> larry@pdn.UUCP (0000-Larry Swift) writes:
>In article <1943@cpoint.UUCP> martillo@cpoint.UUCP (Joacim Martillo) writes:
>>Clearly, lots of computer scientists are losing it.  ISDN is a

>Losing what?  

>>ridiculous technology which does not provide anything which is not
>>already available through the current public phone and data networks.
>>The comparable ISDN service will probably be inferior but cost more.

>This appears to be a nonsensical claim unless you can offer
>substantiation.  Do you have any?

Extension phones are not possible with ISDN. (The phone company always
wanted to charge you for this.)  For no good reason, the proposed
ISDN numbering scheme is incompatible with the current numbering scheme
which makes it very likely that ISDN users will be have difficulty
setting up calls which interwork to a non-ISDN users.  ISDN users will
effectively be stuck on isolated desert islands.  All the
ISDN packet switches and modules which I have seen have miserable
performance since they are designed and manufactured by people who
really only understand voice.  Look at it this way.  AT&T products
are low quality and ridiculously expensive.  AT&T is a major player
in standardizing ISDN.  Worse the European PTTs are the major
driving force behind ISDN.  The PTTs are not comparable to AT&T
but rather are comparable to the US Postal Service.  The US
Postal Service cannot deliver mail cheaply, efficiently and reliably.
Would you really put the US Postal Service in charge of defing
a major new communications technology?

>The increased bandwidth alone makes the offering very interesting.

What increased bandwidth?  You can already lease 56kbps lines or T1
lines?  An ISDN-PBX-LAN would be significantly lower bandwidth
than most other LAN technologies.  I suppose there might be some
value to ISDN in providing remote connectivity but if I were a
network administrator I suspect I could establish remote connectivity
more cheaply by judiciously establishing point-to-point leased lines
between remote networks.  The bottom line is that ISDN because of
the nature of the providers is mostly oriented to providing
switched physical circuits, which really are not of terribly
great use in genuine computer networking and resource sharing.