Xref: utzoo comp.protocols.iso:197 comp.std.internat:444
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pacbell!att!mtund!hsc
From: hsc@mtund.ATT.COM (Harvey Cohen)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.iso,comp.std.internat
Subject: Re: ISDN & the Police State
Message-ID: <1256@mtund.ATT.COM>
Date: 13 Jan 89 22:28:04 GMT
References: <1943@cpoint.UUCP> <5291@pdn.UUCP> <1960@cpoint.UUCP>
Reply-To: hsc@mtund.UUCP (Harvey Cohen)
Organization: AT&T ISL Middletown NJ USA
Lines: 38

I am posting this followups to the technical newsgroups but not
talk.politics, since anybody should be free to say any stupid thing
he pleases in talk.politics.
In article <1960@cpoint.UUCP> martillo@cpoint.UUCP (Joacim Martillo) writes:
>Extension phones are not possible with ISDN.
There is a sense in which this is true; ISDN phones will not work in 
parallel when simply wired in parallel.  However, the Basic Rate
Interface (BRI) spec does permit daisy-chaining.  Also, an ISDN phone could
be designed with a BRI-to-tip/ring converter that support standard
extensions on existing wiring.
>(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.
Will everyone who believes that ISDN users will have trouble telephoning
non-ISDN users, and vice versa, please send me your name and 
credit card number.
>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?
Trust this guy - He must know something or he wouldn't have
such strong opinions!  (This is the first time I have ever seen
a protocol spec criticized ad hominem.)

Could we please confine ourselves to technical discourse,
or at least decorate our heated opinions with some relevant
facts and logic?
-- 
Harvey S. Cohen, AT&T Bell Labs, Lincroft, NJ, mtund!hsc, (201)576-3302