Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 04:30:04 PST
From: Advanced Amateur Radio Networking Group <tcp-group@ucsd.edu>
Errors-To: TCP-Group-Errors@UCSD.Edu
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Subject: TCP-Group Digest V94 #42
To: tcp-group-digest
TCP-Group Digest Tue, 15 Feb 94 Volume 94 : Issue 42
Today's Topics:
Euro ISDN-2 (2 msgs)
ISDN
ISDN in USA (was Re: Euro ISDN-2) (2 msgs)
tapr jnos workshop topics ?
TCP-Group Digest V94 #41
Who (if any) is going to the TAPR meeting
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Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 13:55:38 CET
From: dk5dc@vnet.IBM.COM
Subject: Euro ISDN-2
To: tcp-group@ucsd.Edu
Phil,
You are absolutly right. It's a pitty, development companies
are even cutting budgets (in large chunks) from ISDN development.
Which may finally end up in the point where communication Solutions
and protocols will start to diverge.....
Peter
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 13:23:22 GMT
From: Alan Cox <iiitac@pyramid.swansea.ac.uk>
Subject: Euro ISDN-2
To: jack@victron.nl, karn@qualcomm.com
In the UK, ISDN costs more to install and the same to run within the UK
(more to go abroad). Since the UK still doesn't have general flat rate local
calls its becoming popular with buisness users both for its speed and thus
short duration calls, and its fast dial rate/computer control properties that
make it good for dial on demand traffic.
UK ISDN is on the verge of a big expansion.. and I think it'll take off but
only time will tell. The big IP problem at the moment is every ISDN bridge
vendor likes to force people to use its own incompatible protocol and either
don't support or make it harder to get PPP as wel..
ALan
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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 12:37:32 +1100
From: CCDRW@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Subject: ISDN
To: tcp-group@ucsd.edu
Well, in Australia we have a pretty wide-spread ISDN, but our Telecom basically
market it as Primary rate links for PABX's (20 or 30 chanels on a 2Mb (E1)
stream).
They have been very slow to get it to homes and have an annoying rule that if
the cable run is over 2.5Km to the local exchange they wont give you a basic
rate line (2x64k). That caused us problems when we only wanted a few (3 or 4)
chanels. The technical staff understand Data OK and Semiperminent links make
good 64K data lines, but at a high startup cost!
I'm interested in ISDN ISA boards, if anyone has info!
Dave VK2XPX, sysop VK2RAP.
Internet | ccdrw@cc.newcastle.edu.au
Amprnet | vk2xpx@vk2xpx.ampr.org
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Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 12:17:48 -0500
From: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com
Subject: ISDN in USA (was Re: Euro ISDN-2)
To: tcp-group@ucsd.edu
I run TCP/IP over ISDN practically every day in Massachusetts, USA.
I don't run NOS over ISDN, simply because I have "better" applications
for my purposes (no need for AX.25, and I do need a _serious_ VT220
emulator). But it's possible.
The trouble with ISDN here is that the phone companies don't really
know what it is or how to use it, so they mismarket it. Most have only
sold it until recently for Centrex; that's a bit like selling Ferraris
that can't be driven outside of one's garage. We now have a residential
ISDN tariff in Mass. ($8 above analog for any line class) and it's available
in a modest percentage of the state, inlcuding my neighborhood.
Equipment is indeed pricey but coming down fast; the current price point
for an ISDN-to-Ethernet bridge or ISDN PC card is under $1k, so companies
don't have to call it "capital". The $500 card is almost here (IBM's
Waverunner ISA is $545) and Combinet's bridge has an educational price
in that range (though the dial-in end costs much more).
PPP-over-ISDN is becoming sort of a standard, and many vendors should
have it this year. Alas, proprietary encapsulations are still common,
so for instance Gandalf, Digiboard and Combinet can't interoperate.
Network Express has however built a dial-in server that talks multiple
dialects. Compressed PPP may come next year when the standard for that
is agreed upon; today's compression is again vendor-specific.
But it is nice to be able to upload files at 56k and run X Windows at
decent speed. Now the trick is cost: For local calls, most telcos in
the US charge usage (1-2c/minute, sometimes more) for ISDN "data" calls.
Even if "speech" is free. Calls within Centrex are free but that's
pretty limiting. The workaround, for LOCAL calls, is to make data calls
specifying bearer capability = speech. The local voice network is almost
always digital uncompressed and good for 56 kbps. It's harder for
long distance (echo canceller tones) and impossible overseas (compression).
fred k1io
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 17:13:02 -0800
From: Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>
Subject: ISDN in USA (was Re: Euro ISDN-2)
To: goldstein@carafe.tay2.dec.com, tcp-group@UCSD.EDU
Nah, selling ISDN for intra-company Centrex-style computer networking
isn't like selling Ferraris that won't go outside your garage. It's
more like trying to sell tricycles to people who already own cheap
and reliable Ferraris (10 megabit Ethernets)...
It's amazing that the Telcos ever thought they could compete with
Ethernet. They always seem to want to sell you what you need least,
and sit on the stuff that you really do want until it's nearly obsolete.
Phil
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 94 18:49:41 PST
From: "(Johan. K. Reinalda)" <johan@ECE.ORST.EDU>
Subject: tapr jnos workshop topics ?
To: nos-bbs@hydra.carleton.ca, tcp-group@ucsd.edu
>From those that are going to attend the jnos workshop at the
tapr convention in a few weeks, I would like to hear what kind of
topics you are interested in hearing about...
Please send mail to me, not a reply to the groups
Johan, WG7J.
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 14:33:13 +0100
From: Geert Jan de Groot <GeertJan.deGroot@ripe.net>
Subject: TCP-Group Digest V94 #41
To: TCP-Group@ucsd.edu
On Mon, 14 Feb 94 04:30:02 PST Advanced Amateur Radio Networking Group wrote:
> Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 01:15:09 -0800
> From: Phil Karn <karn@qualcomm.com>
> Subject: Euro ISDN-2
> To: jack@victron.nl
>
> Ask the Japanese. Ask the Europeans. In fact, ask just about everybody
> but us Americans. Here ISDN has been an almost complete flop for these
> and other reasons:
> 1. ISDN is only available in a smattering of US locations.
> 2. It's expensive. Very expensive. Both for the equipment and the
> telco charges (installation and usage - some automatically charge
> per-minute business rates even for local calls).
In Europe, there are a number of ISDN standards around making no end
of confusion. This happened when the standard bodies were not quick
enough defining ISDN, and various local implementations filled in
the gaps, each in it's own way. There are a number of local
implementations, which are all incompatible: while with analogue
phone you can plug a German modem in a Dutch phone socket and expect
it to work, you cannot do so with ISDN because the equipment simply
will not talk to each other.
To overcome this, it has been decided that there will be one
general standard: euro-ISDN. This, however, is not without flaws:
- Approval is very difficult, and thus very expensive. I know of
very little equipment that has been approved yet, and what has,
is expensive. As a result, there is almost no equipment
available yet..
- There are (again) local variations to Euro-ISDN. While basic
functions might work, do not expect full functionality (e.g.
toll ticketing is done differently in various countries, as
are some other features.
In Germany, 1TR6 ISDN (the local variation) is available almost
everywhere and very good usable. Line costs are double of a normal
phone line but connect costs are the same. This means that you can get
cheap 64kbit/sec switched service, including Calling Line Identification,
for the same (traffic) price as an analogue line. No wonder that
this setup is very popular there; even if the standard changes in a few
years (which it does), the equipment pays back for itself soon because
the speed more than triples compared to analogue modems (Germany used
to have very restrictive modem policies, so the increase was even more!)
You can get cheap ($400) ISDN cards for PC there. It is very often used
for file transfer. I know of an Internet service provider who
simply could not keep up with the growth of his IP-over-ISDN service:
people moved from slow dialup UUCP lines to ISDN lines and added
the ability to connect to the Internet at the same time, and for
the same price!
In the Netherlands, things are just starting up. Stuff is still
expensive and unreliable. The few lines that have been delivered
did have some problems: I am glad I was able to use a protocol
analyser when I installed one. Things are getting better, but slow.
The service in other countries differs. You might want to look
into comp.dcom.isdn.
> In the one case I know something about (Japan), residential ISDN is
> priced at the same rates as analog POTS. And there are no free local
> calls, so there's an incentive to use connect time as efficiently as
> possible. So I understand that IP-over-ISDN has become popular
> there. Even ISDN pay phones are fairly common.
Internet service providers are starting to use ISDN in many countries
now. In some countries, it is still very much experimental, while
in other places production traffic runs via ISDN. This gives it's own
problems, though: a single DNS lookup might cost $0.15 because
it causes the ISDN link to go up and down. I have had some real
panicky phonecalls from people who saw this happen all day because
of configuration errors
Geert Jan
(RIPE NCC is NOT an Internet service provider)
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 1994 17:29:28 -0800
From: brian@nothing.ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor)
Subject: Who (if any) is going to the TAPR meeting
To: tcp-group@nothing.ucsd.edu
I'm having a difficult time convincing myself that it's worth going to
the TAPR annual meeting this year, what with all the changes to the
organization and so on.
Any opinions?
- Brian
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End of TCP-Group Digest V94 #42
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