goldstein@delni.DEC.COM (Fred R. Goldstein dtn226-7388) (05/03/88)
In TELECOM V8I68, Robert C. White Jr. claims that he has an idea that
will fix one of ISDN's problems, namely that of terminal compatibility.
He wonders where to bring it -- AT&T didn't seem to listen!
ISDN standards will be included in the 1988 CCITT Blue Books, whose
final technical input will be in very soon. In the US, ANSI T1S1 is
a) preparing input to CCITT, by means of the State Department's Joint
Working Party; and b) writing the American National Standard for ISDN.
I sit on T1S1.
Standards input comes from member contributions. There are maybe a
hundred or so members of T1S1 (successor to T1D1, kinda), each of which
sends as many warm bodies to a meeting as they feel like funding.
There are parallel meetings on various topics. Pretty much all work
is based on written contributions brought in to the meetings. I bring
home a 4-6 inch stack of paper from each meeting, and that's after
I filter out stuff I'm not interested in.
Now, the mentality of T1S1 is definitely not mainframe to mainframe!
It's primarily telephony, since ISDN is the digital rationalization of
the telephone network, incidentally supporting data. Since different
types of terminals share the network, compatibility is an issue;
there is a group of people who get together at each ISDN meeting and
hash out specific issues around terminal compatibility and identification.
This is not an area where all sides are equally comfy: Certain European
administrations (no names, but you might guess) are leery of letting
_too much_ information pass between users before the call is connected,
since that might allow "free" exchange of info. Remember, "Collect
Call from Joe Shmoishome", "Sorry, I' won't take it"?
If it's an ISDN issue, we've probably beaten it to death at T1S1.
New ideas should be directed at your organization's rep. (What, you
don't have one?)
fred