About ISDN

The word NEW on a link indicates updated after 7 Dec 96.

What is ISDN, anyway?
ISDN Magazines and periodicals
ISDN Dialtone Providers
ISDN Videoconferencing
Using ISDN for studio quality audio transmission
Computer-Telephone-Interfacing; using ISDN to process audio phone calls via computer
Search various online databases for ISDN
ISDN user groups
Other ISDN user information sources
ISDN training and education
European ISDN user information sources
ISDN non-RFC standards information
Internet RFCs and Drafts related to ISDN and/or PPP
Unclassified Foreign Language ISDN Pages
Marketing Info & Research Firms

What is ISDN, anyway?

ISDN cards and TA's are like modems, but 5 times faster. They require special telephone lines, which cost a little (or a lot, depending on your phone company) more than normal phone lines.

ISDN calls are usually (in USA) charged by the minute, even for local calls, but this varies from state to state. In California, it's free for home use during off-peak hours, and $0.01 or so per minute during business hours. If you're quite nearby to someone you connect to constantly, you can sometimes order Centrex service, and get free calling always.

Businesses seeking fulltime connection are often better served by 56Kb/sec Frame Relay instead of ISDN, as it's flat rate. Consult Steve Neil's excellent page of Frame Relay Resources for more info.

For more info, check out these online sources:

ISDN Tutorial by Ralph Becker
Pac Bell's ISDN User's Guide
Pacific Bell OnLine Magazine
Bell Atlantic's ISDN Reality Check - walkthroughs of several ISDN Internet setups
comp.dcom.isdn Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Symplex's ISDN Primer
A fine Guide to ISDN with a really good bibliography
ACC's Networking Whitepapers
John Kohl's awesome NYNEX home ISDN for Internet access FAQ
ISDN Is Still Difficult to Network, by David Strom. The trials and tribulations of ISDN for Internet access, plus a few tips. 1/96.
ISDN ... Life in the fast lane (Mac; Canada)
Liverpool John Moores University's European ISDN Web Page
AusWeb95- ISDN for Community Access to the World Wide Web
Theo Wright's Guide to ISDN for UK Schools
David Ginsberg's LAMG ISDN Article
ZDNet's Jimmy Guterman and his ISDN Experiences (Fall '95)
Free Online Dictionary of Computing's definition of ISDN
Cybercafe's 'ISDN services and you'
PC Lube & Tune's How to Upgrade to ISDN
PC Lube & Tune's PC Communications over Modems and ISDN
Joe McGarvey: Eye-Es-Dee What? or How The Internet Rescued ISDN
Quicomm's ISDN and the Mac
Synapse's ISDN Solution Center:
- ISDN 101 - An Introductory Survey of ISDN
- Speed Speak - Complex ISDN Issues
- ISDN Equipment & Software

or these books:

Remote LAN Access by Jeff Fritz
ISDN For Dummies, by David Angell
ISDN Networking Essentials, by Ed Tittle & Steve James
Gary C. Kessler's ISDN Book
ISDN and Broadband ISDN with Frame Relay and ATM, by William Stallings
Special Edition: Using ISDN, by Jim Bryce
Erfolreiche Vernetzung mit ISDN (German)
ISDN-Fachlexikon (German)

or even this video:

Basic ISDN by Andy Kauffmann

ISDN Magazines and Periodicals

Communications Standards Review
Computer Networks and ISDN Systems
Phillips Business Information's ISDN NEWS
LAN Times
- 1996 Stories about ISDN
ISDN Report
TELECOMMUNICATIONS Magazine
Teleconnect and Computer Telephony Magazines
ITC Publications
- TCC - ISDN industry newsletter
- TCC - ISDN-SB small business user newsletter

ISDN Dialtone Providers

United States
- AT&T Digital Long Distance Service
- Ameritech
- Bell Atlantic
- BellSouth Telecommunications
  - See also: Bellsouth Corporate Page
  - ISDN Products & Services (Nice summary of monthly charges per state)
  - OCN's ISDN InfoCenter
  - OCN's BellSouth ISDN Deployment
  - OCN's BellSouth ISDN Availability Lookup
- GTE
- Natco Northern Arkansas Telephone Company (Rates)
- Nynex (Formerly New York/New England Tel)
  - See also John Kohl's awesome NYNEX home ISDN for Internet access FAQ
- Pacific Bell (California, USA)
  - Pacific Bell Service Options and Rates
  - Search Pac Bell server for ISDN
- Pacific Telesis Group (West/southwest USA)
- Sprint_ISDN
- Southwestern Bell Telephone
  - Southwestern Bell ISDN info
  - Southwest Bell Tariff (Kindly provided by Lenny Tropiano)
  - Southwestern Bell Telephone Houston Digiline info
- SNET (Connecticut)
  - See also NTPlex's SNET ISDN Information
- U.S. West
- WilTel
Canada
- Stentor: The Alliance of Canada's Telephone Companies
- CanISDN: The Canadian ISDN Resource Centre
  - Stentor ISDN Services
Europe
- Deutsche Telekom
  - Euro-ISDN Informationen der Telekom
- France Telecom
- Telia AB Rgn V (Sweden)
- Swiss Telecom
- Netherlands Rollout voor de ISDN FAQ
- (Neuradne) Telekom informacije (Unofficial Slovenian Telekom site)
Middle East
- Bezeq - Israel TeleComm
- ISDN in Israel
Australia
- Telestra and their ISDN info
Japan
- NTT They even have ISDN payphones! ...
  - NTT official server
  - NTT ISDN Info
Russia
- Russian ISDN Home Page

ISDN Videoconferencing

Sources of General Videoconferencing Info
- Videoconferencing FAQ (Thanks to Charles Hendricks!)
- Desktop Video Conferencing
- International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium
- PictureTel Users' Mailing List (ptel-users)
- Videophone Mailing List
  - Submissions to: videophone@ES.net
  - Administrative requests to: videophone-request@ES.net
Videoconference Site Directories
Hotels with ISDN Facilities
- Metropolitan Hotel
Videoconferencing Vendors
- Apple's QuickTime Conferencing
- AT&T Desktop Video Conferencing Products
- Bitfield Oy (Finnish vendor)
- Intel ProShare(tm) Personal Conferencing Video System 200
- MMTECH
  - Xyclops 900 Video-telephone ISA card
  - MMTECH's Videophone API Knows about things like PAL and NTSC (wierd!), H.320, H.221, H.230, H.242, H.261, G.711, G.722, G.728, and possibly other building-block standards. (Hey, what about MPEG?) (Should we call it VTAPI?)
- Performance Computing Incorporated (Video/audio realtime standard codecs for Windows)
- PicturePhone Direct Videoconferencing
- PictureTel Corporation
  - System 1000 -- 1 BRI videoconferencing unit
  - Montage -- PRI multipoint bridge / conferencing server
- RSI Systems, Inc. and The Videoguy
- SAT-SAGEM (nee Euronis)
  - MeetMe VideoConferencing Unit (H.320 and ISDN NuBus Board for the Power Macintosh AVM)
- Stentor Conferencing Services: VideoForum
- 950516.01: Standards-based Video MCU - Teleos VideoRouter(TM) T1, supports many protocols.
- VideoServer (PRI multipoint conferencing hubs)
- Vivo Software, Inc.
- See also: BRI Multiplexors

Using ISDN for studio quality audio transmission

Directories
- Broadcast ISDN User Guide & Directory
- The Audiobahn -- Studio-to-Studio Audio Feeds via BRI. Lists US studios with any MPEG or G.722 equipment.
- The Switched Digital Audio Directory for Public Radio
- Switched Digital Audio Equipment Mfrs
- WorldNet directory (of studios with APT equipment)
A Broadcasters Guide to Remote Audio -- by Cameron Communications Group
Audio Processing Technology (APT)
- DRT 128 Digital Reporter Terminal -- 1 BRI, 32khz and 16Kz sampling frequencies, XLR,mike,headphone jacks
- Pro-Link ISDN Manager -- 3 BRI inverse multiplexor
Comrex (Codecs; require external TA's for use with ISDN)
Dolby Labs
- Dolby FAX
Telos Zephyr (Audio transmission system)
- Audio Broadcast Group, Inc. - Telos Distributor
Digifon
SoundWave
The Process
Other examples of places using ISDN for studio quality audio:
- Flinn Broadcasting-Underground Network
Audio-Networks Mailing List
- Archives
- Submissions to: audio-networks@vortex.com
- Administrative requests to: audio-networks-request@vortex.com with a line in the BODY of the message of the form:
  subscribe audio-networks YOUR_FULL_NAME
  or
  unsubscribe audio-networks YOUR_FULL_NAME

Computer-Telephone-Interfacing; using ISDN to process audio phone calls via computer

To do CTI, you need hardware (either a computer with a built-in ISDN interface, or one or more plug-in cards) and software (commercial or custom). In between, you need to use an API (CAPI, WinISDN, TSAPI, MVIP, or proprietary) and possibly middleware (Visual ISDN, etc.). You might use Windows, or for big applications, UNIX or Windows NT. Check my software and hardware pages for those.

Dialogic's CTI pages
IBM's CallPath (see also here - crossplatform API + back end
Mitel
- Mitel's USB Phone Demo -- hmm. A telephone that plugs into a USB port. (Hmm, SWITCH_TYPE=PENTIUM :-)
Flatiron Publishing, Inc. Computer Telephony Expo '96, books, Teleconnect and Computer Telephony magazines. Looks good!

Search various online databases for ISDN

Search World Wide Web Yellow Pages for ISDN NEW
Newspage -- view news service articles about ISDN -- great!
InfoWorld Master Search
Lycos search: isdn -kegel (shows abstracts!)
Lycos Search Form
Search the comp.newprod archives for ISDN
Search Apple Tech Info Library for ISDN
Search DEC's WWW Server for ISDN
Search Eicon Technology's Web server for ISDN
Search IBM Announcement Letter Titles for ISDN
Search IBM Austin for ISDN
Search Intel for ISDN
Search for ISDN in www.sun.com
Search for ISDN in Windows area of Microsoft's Knowledge Base
Search for ISDN in Windows NT area of Microsoft's Knowledge Base
Search www.Novell.com for ISDN
Search Cisco for ISDN
Following searches don't seem to work well at moment:
Search ATT's Bibliography for ISDN (broken)
Search CUI W3 Catalog for ISDN (broken)
Search PC Week Labs Web Server (broken)
Search Veronica for ISDN; good at finding ISDN mailing list msgs (broken)
Search Veronica, with your own search key (broken)

ISDN user groups

ISDN Showcases / Trade shows / Demo Days
ISDN '95 Symposium (Oct '95)
PRIDUF Home Page (Pacific Region ISDN/Data User Forum)
North American ISDN Users' Forum (NIUF)
- NIUF Home Page at NIST (Even some technical info!)
- OCN's NIUF INFORMATION HOME PAGE
The California ISDN Users' Group
- CIUG Home Page
- CIUG Nov '94 Meeting Minutes & Connectathon Results
The Florida ISDN Users Group
The New York ISDN Users Group
The Texas ISDN Users Group (TIUG)
Southern African ISDN Forum
IIIUF - Indonesian ISDN & Internet User Forum
Ascend Frequently Asked Questions (put together by Ascend users)
ISDN BBS List -- A list of ISDN BBS's
Nortel's ISDN BBS List
ISDN_List109.txt (European ISDN BBS's)

Other ISDN information sources

Anchor Datacomm Data Communications and Networking Links (Not too ISDN specific, but good) NEW
Sean's ISDN-O-Rama
MSGNet's ISDN info and Hardware Reviews
UIUCnet@home Information and Guidelines
Universtität des Saarlandes 's ISDN/CAPI/ATM FAQ page (English and German)
Sven's ISDN informationbase
Jeff Frohwein's ISDN Page
Network Computing's ISDN Online
Gatech's ISDN Project
Computer and Communication Link Page (Was as LLNL, now spun off)
Bellcore ISDN Home Page; Bell and NIUF documents on ISDN.
NIUF's document on "Installing ISDN Basic Access in a Single-Family Home Using Existing Wiring" (Maintained by Steve Halpern at NYNEX, <sjh@nynexst.com>)
Networld+Interop trade show
Datacomm-US -- a commercial subject index of comm resources
ISDN Mailing List
- Submissions to: isdn@precipice.v-site.net
- Administrative requests to: isdn-request@precipice.v-site.net
Discussion group for low-cost ISDN in US
ISDN on listproc@tap.org
ISDN is a temporary discussion list set up for an Ad Hoc Coalition on Low Cost ISDN tariffs. The list is open and unmoderated. The purpose of the list is to discuss proposed amendments to HR 1555 (Communications Act of 1995) which would require local exchange telephone carriers, which do not face substantial competition, to offer ISDN services at prices which are reasonable, given the cost of providing the service.
- Archives
- Submissions to: isdn@tap.org
- Administrative requests to: listproc@tap.org with a line in the BODY of the message of the form:
  subscribe isdn firstname lastname
  or
  unsubscribe isdn firstname lastname
ISDN Newsgroups (See also European ISDN Newsgroups below)
- comp.dcom.isdn

ISDN training and education

Bellcore 5ESS and DMS-100 Training Courses (For telco personnel)
Cameron Communications Group's ISDN Training Courses
Dory Leifer's Networld+Interop ISDN tutorial (April 1-2, 1996)
Learning Tree International Course Information (USA)
Moreinfo.com.au - Australia

European ISDN information sources

European ISDN Users' Forum (EIUF) (Position papers explain a bit about EuroISDN)
Belgium
- Jef Stenuit 's Euro-ISDN Page -- a guide to ISDN from the point of view of an ISP technical support person. English.
Germany / Austria
- Telefon-FAQ (German; all about the telephone system in Germany)
- Tomas Naumanns ISDN-Seite (German)
- ISDN Seite at Uni des Saarlands (CAPI specs, FAQ)
- IAIK ISDN ACIVITIES (Technical University of Graz, Austria)
- TCP/IP over ISDN. Frequently Asked Questions in German
- ISDN. Frequently Asked Questions in German
- Internetverbindung ueber NDH mit ISDN und Windows'95
- ISDN und Windows FAQ (Uni Mannheim, German)
Iceland
- Upplýsingar um fjarskipti (Communications Links, in Icelandic)
- Gjaldskrá fyrir samnet (ISDN) (Samnet (ISDN) tariffs info, in Icelandic)
Netherlands
- Wat is ISDN?
- Frequently Asked Questions over ISDN (Netherlands, in Dutch)
- Netherlands SURFnet ISDN Toegang (SURF-it)
- TERENA Lower layer Task Force Local Access (Europe) (Was RARE)
Sweden
- Telia ISDN - Hemsida (Nice collection of info in Swedish)
United Kingdom
- ISDN FAQ from MultiThread Consultants
- UCL (U.K.) Campus PRI ISDN Infrastructure Info.
- ftp://mailbase.ac.uk/pub/lists/isdn-users (Good description of the Manchester ISDN Project)
- European ISDN Users' Forum (EIUF) site at University of Wales
Eastern Europe
- Robert Raszuk's ISDN Page (Warsaw)
European ISDN Newsgroups (Only the first three appear to be active at UUNET)
- de.comm.isdn
- fido.ger.isdn
- zer.z-netz.telecom.isdn
- at.fido.isdn (carried by news.austria.eu.net)
- cl.datenschutz.isdn
- fj.net.isdn
- iijnet.dcom.isdn
- israel.dcom.isdn
- sfnet.lists.tcp-isdn
- tnn.dcom.isdn
- tp.isdn
Fidonet area isdn.eur archives can be downloaded from The Experimenter's BBS, +32 3 320 9129, but they overlap somewhat with de.comm.isdn.

ISDN non-RFC standards information

Communications Standards Review
ETSI ISDN Error Codes (Courtesy of SCii)
ECMA Standards
The European Computer Manufacturers Association publishes a large number of standards free of charge.
ETSI Standards
The European Telecom Standards Institute publishes a large number of standards, and expects to make lots of money at it, so don't expect to learn much for free.
ITU (nee CCITT) Standards
The International Telecom Union publishes a large number of standards, and expects to make lots of money at it, so don't expect to learn much for free.
- Series I Recommendations (Lots of ISDN stuff)
- Series Q Recommendations (Also lots of ISDN stuff)
  - [Q.931] Recommendation Q.931 - Digital subscriber signalling system [EuroISDN low level] - (DSS 1) - ISDN user-network interface layer 3 specification for basic call control
- Series V Recommendations
  - V.11 [High speed TA interface] - Electrical characteristics for balanced double ...
  - V.24 [Low speed TA interface?] - List of definitions for interchange circuit...
  - V.25bis [TA Dialling] - Automatic calling and/or answering equipment on the general switched telephone network (GSTN) using the 100-series interchange circuits
  - V.35 [High speed TA Interface] - DTE-DCE interface for T1 speeds
    Obsolete. The name lives on, probably incorrectly. Ken Krechmer writes:
    V.35 has been removed from the ITU-T Recommendations for some 4-5 years. It originally identified a 48,000 bit/s group band modem and was often referenced for the interface (usually incorrectly). Now there is no "V.35" in ITU. There are a number of variations (both electrical and logical) in the market of the high speed digital interface. Users would be advised to consider TIA 530 (which has a mode of operation via cable change to support most of the possible "V.35" variations).
  - V.120 [Asynchronous Emulation] - Support by ISDN of DCE with V-series type interfaces with provision for statistical multiplexing
- Series X Recommendations
  - X.21 [TA Interface] - Interface between DTE and DCE for synchronous operation on public data networks
LEO - /pub/comp/doc/standards/isdn (ITU and CAPI stds)
MVIP Interface (like a PBX-in-a-PC; special purpose bus for connecting T1, PRI, voicemail cards)
User-network aspects Euro-ISDN PTT Telecom (Netherlands) [Almost a book!]
Multimedia Standards Survey
Corp. for Open Systems - H.320 interop profile by bob1@cos.com
Info on the BONDING protocol.
Note: RFC1618 says "It is recommended that the RFC1717 PPP Multi-Link Procedure be used instead of BONDING."
An update on BONDING, including its status as an ISO standard, may be read here.

Internet RFCs and Drafts related to ISDN and/or PPP

draft-ietf-pppext-bacp-01.txt Draft PPP Bandwidth Allocation Control Protocol (BACP), 3/96
draft-ietf-pppext-compression-04.txt Draft PPP Compression Control Protocol (CCP), 3/94
draft-ietf-isdnmib-snmp-isdn-mib-00.txt Draft SNMP MIB for ISDN, 6/95
RFC1717 "PPP Multi-Link Extensions", 12/94.
Ascend Agrees to license its PPP extensions (MP+) for free
Other Internet Drafts (zillions of proposed PPP Extensions)
RFC1055 "Nonstandard for transmission of IP datagrams over serial lines: SLIP", 06/01/1988.
RFC1072 "TCP extensions for long-delay paths", 10/01/1988.
RFC1144 "Compressing TCP/IP headers for low-speed serial links", 02/01/1990.
RFC1332 "The PPP Internet Protocol Control Protocol (IPCP)", 05/26/1992. (Obsoletes RFC1172)
RFC1333 "PPP Link Quality Monitoring", 05/26/1992.
RFC1334 "PPP Authentication Protocols", 10/20/1992.
RFC1356 "Multiprotocol Interconnect on X.25 and ISDN in the Packet Mode", 08/06/1992.
RFC1376 "The PPP DECnet Phase IV Control Protocol (DNCP)", 11/05/1992.
RFC1377 "The PPP OSI Network Layer Control Protocol (OSINLCP)", 11/05/1992.
RFC1378 "The PPP AppleTalk Control Protocol (ATCP)", 11/05/1992.
RFC1552 "The PPP Internetwork Packet Exchange Control Protocol (IPXCP)", 12/09/1993.
RFC1570 "PPP LCP Extensions", 01/11/1994. (Updates RFC1548)
RFC1598 "PPP in X.25", 03/17/1994.
RFC1618 "PPP over ISDN", 05/13/1994.
RFC1619 "PPP over SONET/SDH", 05/13/1994.
RFC1638 "PPP Bridging Control Protocol (BCP)", 06/09/1994. (Obsoletes RFC1220)
RFC1661 "The Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP)", 07/21/1994. (Obsoletes RFC1548) (STD 51)
RFC1662 "PPP in HDLC-like Framing", 07/21/1994. (Obsoletes RFC1549) (STD 51)
RFC1663 "PPP Reliable Transmission", 07/21/1994.
RFC1877 "PPP Internet Protocol Control Protocol Extensions for Name Server Addresses", 12/95. Used by Windows 95 dialup networking to get DNS addresses.
RFC1541 "Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol", 10/1993.