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Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do?

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On Sun, May 22, 2022 at 12:11:50PM -0400, Fred Goldstein wrote:
>> On 5/19/2022 9:05, Bill Horne wrote:
>>>> I was talking to an old friend yesterday, and he told me that
>>>> he's been working from home for a while now, and the conversation
>>>> turned to > >>>ISDN phone service, which I recommend to anyone
>>>> who can still obtain it.
>>>> 
>>>> 1. Which states still have tariffs for ISDN BRI lines?
> 
> ISDN Basic Rate Interface (BRI) is generally no longer available in the US.
> Verizon and I think ATT long ago gave formal notice of discontinuance or
> grandfathering. Maybe Qwest, pre-Century, didn't bother, so it may still be
> on the books there. But few know how to provision it. Many of the switches
> that provided it (mainly 5ESS and DMS-100 in the US) no longer are in
> service. It was useful, especially for broadcasters doing remote feeds. It
> was better than a modem for Internet access, and that's what killed it as it
> was coming out in the early 1990s -- the Bells hated the Internet, which
> broke their locality-based business model, and while they couldn't attack
> modem users per se, they could at least attack the most obvious Internet
> user group, non-Centrex ISDN BRI users.

This is twice in one day that I've had to take a step downward from my
place on Mount Olympus, and I fear I might turn into Sisyphus if I
don't - pun intended - watch my step. ;-)

Why would the bells hate the Internet? To be sure, their business
model was built around central offices which each served a rate
center, but how could they have predicted and/or anticipated the
development of VoIP? Did Mother Bell see /any/ data transmission
method as a threat? Why?

The Baby Bells knew that Cellular was coming, and I'd bet they knew it
would displace copper-served POTS within time we've had to see it
happen. Still, I just don't remember the leaders of the Baby Bells as
being such long-term thinkers. The Internet hasn't replaced their
locality-based feeding trough: we still have and use phone numbers,
and even if a cell call has to be routed using VoIP and/or SIP trunks,
the savings in billing offered by "Free" long-distance would have more
than offset the cost of adapting to new trunking paradigms.

> Bell Atlantic l/k/a Verizon was also fanatical in those days about
> selling Centrex, and saw ISDN BRI as a tool for Centrex feature
> phones, but that was about it. That business has faded out too.

I wonder why? What was so different between the business models of the
1990's and those of the 2020's that Centrex would no longer be a
cost-saver for firms which chose to use it? Granted, the Coronavirus
has caused a reexamination of work-at-home as a viable real-estate
strategy, but I think the /time/ spent on dialing, connecting, and
suffering with the shortcomings of cellular calls, like picket-fencing,
fading, disconnecting, and - last but far from least - being easily
tapped by anyone with an antenna ana a few items of listening
equipment.
 
> ISDN Primary Rate Interface (PRI), which runs over a DS-1 ("T1") channel, is
> still out there, though again its number are in decline. It is a very good
> trunk interface for PBX systems, and many different 1995-2010 vintage
> switching systems support it, as it handled the dial-up era's modem pools.
> But most newer systems use SIP trunks instead. PRI has higher quality of
> service than SIP/RTP/IP, but the industry has moved away from it, as the
> higher-volume IP services usually have a lower price tag.

I'm afraid comparing IP-based telephony to ISDN PRI links is the
ultimate race-to-the-bottom in voice communicaiton. As far as I can
tell, the only thing that makes SIP or VoIP or /any/ Internet-based
real-time service - don't forget streaming video - viable is a surplus
of bandwidth which will, inevitably, decline as paid-prioritization
methods and equpment take hold.

Bill, who is feeling old and out-of-step. 

-- 
Bill Horne
(Please remove QRM from my email address in order to write to me directly)

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Thread

ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? [telecom] Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2022-05-19 13:05 +0000
  Re: ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? [telecom] "Marco Moock" <mo01@posteo.de> - 2022-05-19 17:49 +0200
    Re: ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? [telecom] "Grant Taylor" <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> - 2022-05-20 17:36 -0600
  Re: ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? [telecom] Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2022-05-21 16:36 +0000
    Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2022-05-23 02:41 +0000
      Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Fred Goldstein" <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org> - 2022-05-23 08:39 -0400
        Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Doug McIntyre" <merlyn@dork.geeks.org> - 2022-05-25 15:20 -0500
          Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2022-05-29 19:21 +0000
            Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2022-05-29 22:11 +0000
          Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2022-05-27 19:53 +0000
      Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Grant Taylor" <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> - 2022-05-23 10:36 -0600
    Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Fred Goldstein" <invalid@see.sig.telecom-digest.org> - 2022-05-22 12:11 -0400
      Re: ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "David" <wb8foz@panix.com> - 2022-05-28 16:12 -0400
        Re: ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? Bill Horne <malQRMassimilation@gmail.com> - 2022-05-29 20:59 +0000
      Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? Bill Horne <malassQRMimilation@gmail.com> - 2022-05-29 20:51 +0000
        ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "David" <wb8foz@panix.com> - 2022-05-30 08:50 -0400
        Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "John Levine" <johnl@taugh.com> - 2022-05-29 22:24 +0000
        Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Grant Taylor" <gtaylor@tnetconsulting.net> - 2022-05-29 15:47 -0600
        Re: [telecom] ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? "Garrett Wollman" <wollman@bimajority.org> - 2022-05-30 22:53 +0000
  Re: ISDN's days are numbered: What should you do? [telecom] "Michael Trew" <michael.trew@att.net> - 2022-05-20 23:40 -0400

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