At 01:31 AM 9/15/96 -0700, Bill Stewart wrote:

Unless they're _really_ talking about ISDN "modems", I'm surprised to hear somebody saying they can take 56 kbps, turn it into analog, let the phone company quantize and mu-law the analog into 64kbps, and still get the original 56kbps back out. But if they can, well, yee-hah, ISDN is nearly dead :-) (Not totally dead; the signalling is still useful for some applications, the convenience of two channels on one wire pair is nice, and the fact that people can get 56kbps without the phone company's help will pressure them into offering ISDN for a lower price in areas where the Phone Company's idea of "all the market will bear" is substantially higher than voice pricing.)

If the phoneco was realistic about ISDN value, they'd decide that since anybody can buy a 31k modem for $100 or so, the "value" of a 128K connection is about $400, and then they'd charge based on the actuarial value of this hypothetical one-time fee, at perhaps an interest rate of 5% or so: In other words, about a $20 per year charge, or around $2 per month. Jim Bell jimbell@pacifier.com