[141849] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Yup; the Internet is screwed up.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (TR Shaw)
Sun Jun 12 14:33:36 2011
From: TR Shaw <tshaw@oitc.com>
In-Reply-To: <002501cc292d$64895250$2d9bf6f0$@chipps.com>
Date: Sun, 12 Jun 2011 14:32:39 -0400
To: "Kenneth M. Chipps Ph.D." <chipps@chipps.com>
Cc: 'NANOG list' <nanog@nanog.org>
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
When I had mine years ago I was lucky that ISDN in FL was unmetered =
which was no the case in other locales. However it took forever to get =
it installed and working correctly. Bell South had to change out pairs =
and get a tech from 200 miles away to get it installed right. Today, =
the central office in my town doesn't even support ISDN any more.
As for cellular data being an option I don't think so give the =
increasing data caps and extra fees for overage (which is probably why =
"the cloud" might have big issues for mobile users)
I never liked cable as around here it slows down very noticeably when =
the kids get off school and they don't like giving out fixed IPs unless =
you get a "business account."
ATTuniverse has its own issues and became only available around here =
last year. Its the only DSL option.
So I use WISP even at home just south of the space center.
Tom
On Jun 12, 2011, at 2:20 PM, Kenneth M. Chipps Ph.D. wrote:
> Sure its old and slow, but it is or at least was readily available to =
use
> poor country folk that cannot get DSL and so forth. The failback =
positions
> when all else is unavailable is analog, ISDN, or T1 from a landline,
> satellite or a WISP through the air with cellular data becoming more =
of an
> option.
>=20
> When I called AT&T to order the ISDN line years ago, their answer was =
- Huh,
> What, Do we sell that.
>=20
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Barry Shein [mailto:bzs@world.std.com]=20
> Sent: Sunday, June 12, 2011 1:03 PM
> To: Jon Lewis
> Cc: NANOG list
> Subject: Re: Yup; the Internet is screwed up.
>=20
>=20
> On June 11, 2011 at 20:53 jlewis@lewis.org (Jon Lewis) wrote:
>>=20
>> Have you heard the joke...ISDN =3D I Still Don't kNow? For whatever
> reason, > BRI service is something the US telcos apparently never =
really
> wanted to > sell...perhaps because it might have cut into their T1
> business.=20
>=20
> FWIW, ISDN is pretty old, standardized in 1988 but worked on for years
> before that.
>=20
> The BIG VISION of the telcos was that ISDN would carry the whole =
stack,
> particularly services like (business) e-mail. If you're really old you
> remember MCI Mail which was like 20c/message. They never seriously
> considered a public internet like we got when architecting ISDN.
>=20
> Consequently the whole thing was just too expensive to deliver as a
> last-mile connectivity-only product. They needed revenue from the rest =
of
> the stack to make it profitable.
>=20
> That said, ISDN was very cool in that it was switched which meant you
> "dialed" something, a lot like a POTS number. It was usually an actual =
POTS
> telephone number with some more digits but whatever.
>=20
> But it could establish a connection in about 50msec which meant you =
could be
> dropped, say for idle, hit a key and it'd redial and you'd never =
notice you
> were dropped. Try that with POTS dial-up! You could pretty much be =
dropped
> and redialed between keystrokes and never much notice.
>=20
> More importantly it meant you could have more than one ISDN "ISP", =
like
> dial-up (or voice for that matter) just "dial" a different number.
>=20
> There was discussion, people like Sen Ed Markey of MA was interested =
(ca
> 1992?), in trying to get the phone companies to embrace first ISDN =
(they
> were reluctant, I had it at home but you really had to know how to =
order it
> etc) and then some sort of next generation ISDN which would be faster, =
maybe
> 10x, and so on.
>=20
> The attraction of DSL was, among other things, that it was nailed down =
to
> one and only one service provider, you couldn't just "dial" some other
> provider like with ISDN.
>=20
> This was a very important fork in the history of last-mile services, =
when we
> went from mostly switched (dial-up, maybe ISDN) to nailed-up single =
vendor
> solutions.
>=20
> I'd love to see some sort of "switched" last-mile services again, =
introduce
> some competition into the system, tho most likely it'd be
> (more) virtual over some low-level broadband service.
>=20
>=20
> --=20
> -Barry Shein
>=20
> The World | bzs@TheWorld.com |
> http://www.TheWorld.com
> Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 800-THE-WRLD | Dial-Up: US, PR,
> Canada
> Software Tool & Die | Public Access Internet | SINCE 1989 =
*oo*
>=20
>=20
>=20
>=20
