Summary: Home ISDN Anyone?

[Mary-Ellen Mort]

[After all the mail I received in 24 hours, I *repeat* my original 
greeting:]

Fellow Sufferers--

Since the volume of mail I am getting off-list on the topic of: is it 
worth the money & fuss to get ISDN at home? has been high, I thought an
interim  report might be of interest to others. 

First, regarding speculations as to WHY the Net has been so slow, one 
Web4Lib-er guesses it is AOL's new "all you can eat pricing" which has 
turned "enough" online users into instant surfers to clog up name 
servers, routers, etc. That sounds possible to me!

So far I have had only one report of someone who has (and has had for a 
while) home ISDN and says it is wonderful.

All other writers note that their library has T3 or other high-speed 
phone lines and that connection times & download times still vary greatly.

Other messages (which I quote at length because I found them helpful!):
 
"The Internet backbone is far from being anywhere near congested.  The
problem lies in connections from users to providers, from providers to
NAPs (Network Access Points), ISP oversubscription rates, and
bandwidth from servers to providers and to NAPs.  Upgrading your
access is an excellent move - does not solve the whole problem, but
solves some of it.  We provide Internet access, and I sit on top of an
ATM DS3 national network - except for extremely busy servers or those
sitting at the end of 56K lines, I basically have instant access to
everything.  The other day I downloaded an 8MB piece of software in
under a minute. BTW, I see you use Netcom - they have just announced 
they're moving away from flat fee pricing - may be a good time to run a 
dedicated ISDN line in anyway.  Don't expect much improvement over a dial-up
ISDN - you'll run into the same oversubscription problems..."

*****

"Don't do it.  It is Expensive and you will lose in cost what you gain in
speed. 28.8 Kbps to 56 Kbps is fine."

****

"Most of my experience is on the T-1 line we have at Contra Costa... but it
applies to any kind of access.  As you know, the Internet is so variable,
your speed will vary from minute-to-minute and from site-to-site.  The
following about sums things up:
 
ISDN will often be just as slow as your modem is; but your modem will
never be as fast as ISDN can be.
 
So the question becomes, will it be faster often enough that it justifies
the costs?  Based on my experience with T-1 access, I'd guess that it will
be.  While there are plenty of times/sites when it takes just as long to
connect as it does with a modem, once that connect occurs the pages
generally come faster.  In the course of a day I see speeds all over the
map, ranging from Netscape reporting speeds in 1 K increments that
increase only every few seconds, to speeds approaching 100Kbps on file
transfers.  The average speed ranges around the 2 K to 7 K range.  My
guess is that most of the slowness is Network related, which means the
ISDN wouldn't be too far off from these numbers...."

****

"You might want to do some close examination of the bottlenecks in your
system.  We have an ethernet LAN that connects right into the T1 line
across the street, and things often seem very slow here, too: the slowdown
more often consists of DNS lookups, backbone congestion, and server load
than anything we can control at our end."

****

" You did not mention that America Online recently switched their    
pricing scheme to $19.95 per month with NO TIME LIMIT. This may be the
reason for the slow down.  It is estimated that about 1/3 of their
subscribers are taking advantage of the "all you can eat" service and
are really tying up the internet.
 
As for ISDN, I have been tempted myself but may wait for cable or
microwave availability. Remember, ISDN is 128K ONE WAY and 56K interactive 
(that is you can send data and receive it at the same time). A slight 
advantage but worth the cost?)"

****

I am so happy to be connected to THIS group! Thank you for your help &
support! Please to continue the discussion if you are interested. What I
am hearing is that ISDN may not be the paradise I am picturing (with my
checkbook out.)

Mary-Ellen Mort
JobSmart Project Director
http://jobsmart.org