It's 4:30 p.m. in Concord and you're downloading 10 meg of graphics from a web site over a 14.4 baud modem. You figure you'll be able to review the material and get out of the office by 5:00. But, school's out, and every teenager from Contoocook to Penacook is on line. Your data stream is as slow as a tourist on a winding road. Late for dinner again.
One reason for the Internet's rapid growth is the fact that users and providers have been able to hitchhike on an existing infrastructure: telephone lines. It is estimated that 30,000 businesses a month register commercial sites on the Internet. The chairman of IBM predicts one billion users by the year 2000. Until now, the information highway has not been a capital intensive project, but there's no more room at the inn, folks, and the only way to accommodate future growth is by upgrading the transmission and reception media.
Some say the solution is an Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN). ISDN is a combination infrastructure and user hardware upgrade that results in several improvements. Most importantly, it is a dedicated digital line. Current Internet service is a shared analog line that, when overloaded, results in slower data transmission for everybody.
So, is ISDN the solution? Europe has been using the improved Internet standard for more than 10 years, while U.S. communications companies have hedged their bets as to whether or not there would be sufficient ISDN demand. Detractors of the United States' temerity on this issue claim ISDN's glory days will have soon passed, and that we're making massive investments at the precise time when technologies superior to ISDN are emerging.
The 'too late debate' is moot, however, as AT&T is initiating a nationwide push toward ISDN. On a local level, Nynex is undertaking an enormous ISDN installation project. Over the past three years, Nynex has pumped $270 million into the New Hampshire telecommunications infrastructure. So far, service has been supplied to Concord, Manchester, Portsmouth, Exeter, Hanover, Nashua and Laconia. Service to Dover, Derry, Keene, Littleton, Milford, Rochester and Merrimack is currently being installed. Salem and Hampton are scheduled for direct access by 1997.
Residents and businesses located within three cable miles of ISDN equipped exchange offices may request that an ISDN line be supplied to their home or office at a one time non-recurring charge. These three miles are not "as the crow flies." Cable miles refer to the length of cable between the final fiber optic connection and the beginning of the copper wire that leads to the home or business. As there are several different configurations of voice, data and video that are available, there is no single pricing template that can be overlaid.
Interested parties from smaller towns without a direct connection may access an ISDN line, but must pay a facility charge in addition to the subscription fees. For specific pricing information, call your area Internet service provider or dial 1-800-GET-ISDN. According to Nynex spokesperson Erle Pierce, "Right now 60 to 70 percent of New Hampshire citizens have access to ISDN. That number will increase every year as the installation moves forward. This is really a massive undertaking. Converting a single area exchange office can cost as much as $1 million."
According to John Mazalewski, vice president of sales and marketing at TMA, a Manchester-based telecommunications corporation, ISDN is gaining ground rapidly. "Since November we have received more than 600 referrals. Of those, approximately a third have resulted in installations. As the technology develops, both hardware prices and subscription rates will go down. Just three years ago, you needed to spend over $2,000 for an ISDN modem. Many different models are currently available for under $600.
Many hotels and even airports have begun to install ISDN. New products are an off-shoot of the service. For example, TMA offers a virtual office product called ERIS consisting of a camera, a microphone and a computer that can be attached to an ISDN access port. The result is a portable video-conferencing package. TMA has sold the transportable video package to The Boston Globe, The New York Times and other high visibility clientele.
WHAT EXACTLY IS ISDN?
Have you ever accidentally dialed up a fax machine and had your eardrums flayed into strip steaks by a deafening sequence of whirs and bleeps? What you are hearing is an analog data stream. Now imagine hundreds of thousands of these coded data streams careening through the nations phone lines. During periods of heavy use. it's like half time during the Super Bowl: so many people flush the toilet simultaneously that faucets in New York City barely muster a dribble until the third quarter starts. The ISDN connection is the subscriber's alone and is not affected by peak area usage.
There are two types of ISDN service. Basic rate interface (BRI) is designed for consumer and small to medium size business applications. It processes data at 128 kilobytes per second, roughly nine times the speed of a 14.4 baud modem on an uncluttered line. Primary rate interface (PRI) operates at 1.544 mbps, or 60 times the speed of a state-of-the-art analog modem. Typical customers for PRI are hospitals who need rapid transmission of large amounts of graphics and data, or corporations who have hundreds, even thousands of employees in constant communication.
ISDN offers no security advantages over existing technologies. Without expensive encryption software, confidential E-mails can be accessed and copied with relative ease. and there are as many bandits in the digital domain as the analog. ISDN subscribers must remain aware that virtual theft is the next criminal frontier. For the casual user who still doesn't want every cyber-sniffer on the network pawing through their E-mails, PGP, an acronym for pretty good protection. offers a simple encryption program that will deter all but the professional hacker for around $150.
A DAY LATE?
There is. no dissent among business leaders, Internet service providers (ISPs) or government officials: ISDN is superior to analog cable modems. Why then has it taken so long for companies like Nynex to make the necessary infrastructure improvements to support widespread availability of the connection? Brian Gottlob of Business and Industry Association of NH describes a chicken and egg syndrome that has characterized the industry for years. "Because of limits on the availability of services such as ISDN, and a lack of effort by providers to market the service where available, there is little apparent demand, and because there is little apparent demand. limited service is justified. This attitude will not result in the development o the network New Hampshire needs to reap the full benefits from telecommunications technology."
Long ago, the European Economic Community decided that ISDN would be the standard of choice. and created an ISDN friendly economic climate. According to Sanjay Mewada, an analyst with Yankee Group in Boston, ISDN's European foothold is not the result of free market competition. "Much of the reason Europe has had widespread ISDN installation for so long is due to proactive government policies which at once subsidize ISDN prices, and hike up prices of competing technologies. And if you ask yourself today. right now, is there currently a high-speed data transmission standard in the United States that is cheaper than ISDN, the answer is no, there is not."
COMPETITION & UPGRADES
Exeter Health Resource recently demonstrated a new telecommunications system designed by CCI Telecommunications of New Hampshire, a subsidiary of Continental Cablevision. This particular system is an internal network using a platform called HFC, an acronym for Hybrid Fiber/Coaxial. HFC is a competitor to ISDN, and is gaining popularity in many markets. The new system links Exeter Hospital with doctors' offices and other remote locations. and allows physicians instant access to fetal monitors and electro-cardiograms, as well as computerized records and schedules.
According to Continental Cablevision's director of government and public affairs, Tom O'Rourke, "We like to think HFC is a preferred platform to ISDN. We are also conducting a trial period in some Boston suburbs for high speed Internet access, and so far the 200 residents using it are delighted with the results. There have been very few bugs." Continental has installed a similar, though much larger system at Boston College, connecting the library and other facilities to students' dorm rooms and classrooms.
Cabletron Systems Inc. Product Specialist Skip Carlson says that while the U.S. may have been slow to accept the standard. the growth of ISDN "has yet to reach the top of the bell curve. Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) achieves higher performance than ISDN. and no new line is required. If Nynex had started in on this now, I think they'd probably be looking at ADSL. ISDN is an enormous improvement over analog modems, and they've already made considerable investments in ISDN. That's the service they'll be supporting for the next few years anyway." It's a service Cabletron will be supporting, too, according to Craig Benson, COO. At press time, Cabletron planned to close on a deal August 1 to buy Network Express of Ann Arbor, Mich. Network Express products are used by phone companies to offer customers ISDN services. The company competes with Ascend, 3Com and Sysco.
ISDN is here, if not to stay, at least to reside for a long time. Apart from the easily fathomable advantages of speedier data transmission, companies like TMA in Manchester have been extremely creative with the technology. Products such as ERIS portable video, three-way videoconferencing and a broad menu of other electronic designs are offered to individuals and businesses at prices that may surprise you.
The Price of Getting Hooked
Infrastructure improvements are not the only requisite of ISDN. Individual users must also purchase a digital modem in order to take advantage of the higher transmission speed. The Rochester-based networking giant. Cabletron offers an ISDN interface, called SOHO, an acronym for small office, home office for just under $1000. A fully equipped SOHO, which includes a switch that can select between an analog and a digital modem, weighs in at around $1,350. Cabletron's chief rival, 3Com of California offers an ISDN modem/adapter called The Impact for a list price of $649. The Impact also automatically switches between ISDN and modem operation. Both The Impact and the SOHO are basic rate interfaces. Telesystems Marketing Applications. located in Manchester, brokers a variety of ISDN interfaces and other high speed Internet access products. According to Vice President of Marketing John Mazalewskj. Ascend is the industry leader in digital modems. Ascend offers an interface for under $600 that is perfectly acceptable for home, small business, downloading photos of Teri Hatcher and other common applications. Motorola offers a bare bones ISDN interface for $350.
So what do you get for your extra $650 from Cabletron? The SOHO is appropriate to computers that have been fitted with an Ethernet adapter, as opposed to operating via a computer serial ports. Ethernet is a local area network (LAN) technology that is offered by many Internet service providers (ISPs). It is capable of a 10 meg per second data stream, and provides a superior speed and performance muscle that is likely to come in handy for a small business, and even for a particularly motivated home enthusiast.
If you're considering opening up your own hospital or major manufacturing facility you may wish to install a primary rate interface adapter for around $10,000. Of course you'll need to set aside another $12,000 to $20,000 for software, hardware, processors and a chassis.
ISDN subscription rates will drop as its user base increases. Fixed costs will be spread over an increasing number of subscribers. enabling ISPs to reduce rates while still maintaining healthy corporate profits. Current subscription rates run in the neighborhood of $50 to $60 per month for 30hours with a $2 to $3 per minute charge after the first 30 hours. Many ISPs offer a dedicated dial-up unlimited use plan for a fixed monthly charge.
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