Metroliner telephone article 4130

Of course it *works*, but ISDN does nothing... compared to what it *should* have been able to do. But telephone company management simply did not have the vision to see any need for data communications. They didn't know about The Internet, didn't know about computer networks, and for that matter didn't even know about computers.

In the middle-late 1980's the position they took on ISDN deployment was "Who's gonna pay for it? There is no market."

That non-existent market made billions, but only for modem manufacturers who proceeded to invest in the idea that it did exist, and progressed from 212A modems to V.90, and for cable TV companies that developed the ability to provide Internet access via cable TV's facilities. And then finally, DSL appeared so that telephone companies could deliver IP services too, though even then it had to be distinct from the entire PSTN infrastructure (i.e., ISDN) in order to penetrate the denser areas of telephone company management.

Just imagine the difference it would have made (financially more than anything else) if telco's had fallen all over themselves in the late 80's to implement ISDN. The would have cornered the entire market!

At that time 2400 bps modems were a *big* deal. All of the business that eventually went to modem manufacturers, to ISP's, to cable companies, would have instead boosted *telco* bottom lines. Instead of having mbuttive layoffs all across the industry, telco's would have been putting those people to work, producing profits.

It didn't happen that way, and Scott Adams has chronicled the reason why in a cartoon strip. Dilbert's Pointy Haired Boss... (who incidentally *looks*, as well as acts, almost exactly like the supervisor I suffered with back in the late 80's and early 90's).

--