pcf@galadriel.british-telecom.co.uk (Pete French) (12/08/89)
The following article is reproduced from "Data Comms" magazine...
Britain is set to unveil big ISDN push, at last. After years of
pushing back the introduction of ISDN, British Telecom is now planning
a great leap forward. Instead of installing 1,500 ISDN basic-rate
interface (2B + D) lines in the first year as originally planned, it
is telling suppliers that it will install 50,000 lines during 1990.
Plans for the following years have been given a similar upward thrust,
in line with a memorandum of understanding between European PTTs that
ISDN will be made available to 95 percent of business customers by the
end of 1992. Currently, the UK has about 1,000 "ISDN" lines installed
as part of BT's nonstandard Integrated Digital Access (IDA) service.
====================================
And reproduced from a photocopy that landed on my desk a few minutes
ago...
Plans for the digital communications era of the future have been
unveild by British Telecom with the launch of an advanced service to
carry voice, data and pictures. The service, "British Telecom ISDN 2",
will pave the way for more high-tech applications such as the
picture-phone, ultra-fast fax and high-speed data transfer.
ISDN 2 will provide high-speed digital services to branch offices and
small and medium businesses. Such services have, until now, been
available only to large business sites.
The launch follows a 23 million pound order with STC
Telecommunications for equipment to provide up to 90,000 lines of
network capacity.
Nick Kane,BT's Director of Marketing and Sales said: "Our new service,
the first ISDN service in the world to conform to the latest
international standards, enables a broad spectrum of our customers to
take advantage of information technology services previously only
available to large businesses. In doing so it will accelerate the
introduction of the information society."
==================================
Trying to disentangle this from the marketing blurb ... ISDN 2 is
"true" ISDN and seems to be based on standard I420. The older ISDN 1
was BT's Integrated Digital Access (IDA) service and was based on the
1980 ISDN standard which got changed (oops...). What interests me is
why we all found this out from external sources when we are in the
division that is supposed to be supporting the introduction of ISDN.
Maybe I'll be able to throw away my modem someday soon... :-)
-Pete French. | "The rhythm's gone,
British Telecom Research Labs. | The radio's dead.
Martlesham Heath, East Anglia. | And the damage done,
All my own thoughts (of course) | Inside my head."zweig@cs.uiuc.edu (Johnny Zweig) (12/11/89)
pcf@galadriel.british-telecom.co.uk (Pete French) writes: >Britain is set to unveil big ISDN push, at last. After years of >pushing back the introduction of ISDN, British Telecom is now planning >a great leap forward. Instead of installing 1,500 ISDN basic-rate >interface (2B + D) lines in the first year as originally planned, it >is telling suppliers that it will install 50,000 lines during 1990. >The launch follows a 23 million pound order with STC >Telecommunications for equipment to provide up to 90,000 lines of >network capacity. Huzzah for the Revolution! Anyone at Illinois Bell getting word of any of this? ISDN is still in messy/expensive/poorly-supported "trial" (the term is used in the same sense that Kafka used it, I believe) stage here, and anyone smaller than McDonald's Corp. can't get a hold of it in any reasonable sense. Johnny 128-kbps-or-bust