Survey

ISDN: The Good, Bad, and Ugly

ISDN offers higher bandwidth than V.34 analog modems, but based on comments collected from this month's BYTE survey, ISDN is still a very immature technology in parts of the world.

Comments from Europe, especially the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland, were generally positive. Except for a common complaint of problems either getting or installing Windows 95 drivers, most respondents in Europe said they are happy with ISDN. ("It's exactly what I wanted in order to g et on the Internet," said one user from Germany.) Another common complaint: incompatibility problems when attempting to connect outside of Europe.

The situation in the U.S. is much dicier. Certain regions do better than others. Users in the West Coast area serviced by PacBell said they are generally (but not always) happy with installatio n and support. But readers from other parts of the country posted lengthy horror stories that seem straight out of a Dilbert comic strip. Others said ISDN is still too expensive.

Based on comments from real people actually using ISDN, here's a list of things to consider before adopting it:

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 If you use Windows 95, make sure your ISDN terminal adapter's Win 95 drivers are available.

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 Ensure that your Internet service provider, and not just your phone company, is ISDN-ready.

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 Be patient as you work through initial configuration problems. Many users have problems at first but say they are happy upon successful connection.

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 Do your homework. You may know more about ISDN than your phone company representative.

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 Try to get an ISDN terminal adapter with automatic reconnect; otherwise you'll have to manually reset it after a power outage or packet fault.