Ohio Bell ISDN Experience

[khester <khester () cinpmx attmail com>]

I am an early subscriber of Ohio Bell's ISDN Direct tariff for
residential customers.  I thought the Digest readers might be
interested in my experience with this new service.

* I want my ISDN 

Prior to this new tariff, ISDN was only available via ISDN Centrex
service. I was excited to read in the local paper that the PUCO had
approved the residential tariff.  I called OBT the next day and
requested a single BRI line.  After a few days, I reached someone who
knew what ISDN was and took my initial order.

A few weeks later (OBT had not officially offered this service yet) a
tech came out and installed the line.  Once they were done testing the
line, I discovered that AT&T had not turned up the trunks for switched
digital access that they had put in the week before (my ISDN software
indicated "switching-equipment congestion").  After getting AT&T and
OBT on a conference call, they figured out what was needed to get the
trunks up and make them visible to my data calls.  The next day AT&T
called me to say that the trunk group was active and I should be in
business.

I powered up my Mac and brought up a file transfer program called
EasyTransfer (by Access Privilege) and called up a business partner in
Cincinnati who has ISDN (Cincinnati Bell).  He started his copy of
EasyTransfer and I placed a data call to his machine.  Presto it
worked!!  After exchanging some QuickTime movies which were 5-15MB in
size, we decided my ISDN connection was safe for real work. :-)

* It works, now what ... 

Since then, our CO has been upgraded to support NI-1 and I am planning
to change my BRI line from Custom ISDN to NI-1 (my CPE supports both).
Ohio Bell and AT&T have bent over backwards to fix any problems and to
assist me in this and other ISDN-related ventures.  I have been using
ISDN to work at home, developing computer-integrated telephony
software.  I am going to replace my two existing POTS lines with
another ISDN line in a few months and use a XANCOMM Premise Control
Unit which has a BRI input (U interface), (2) analog POTS output
(CLASS Features supported), and a BRI output (S/T).

* FYI 

Ameritech has set up an 800 number (1-800-TEAM-DATA) to handle any
data related questions and to steer customers to the right people when
ordering service.  I highly recommend you call them first if you want
to place an ISDN order. OBT has contracted a local VAR to handle CPE
needs/questions. The VAR has experience in leased lines but little
ISDN experience.  The lack of CPE experience and information from
telcos is still a big problem.  If you have to rely on them for CPE
selection advice, you are in trouble.  Some RBOCs (i.e., BellSouth)
have recognized these problems and are actively pursuing Alliance
programs which bring together CPE vendors, system integrators and VARs
to provide access to a collective pool of ISDN expertise for their
customers.

* Billing

I receive one integrated bill from OBT and AT&T for ISDN service, and
long distance voice calls ... AND, another bill from AT&T Accunet for
data calls.  It would be nice if AT&T could integrate the data calls
into my other bill (to save trees, postage, etc.).  AT&T, are you
listening?  Actually, I would prefer to not get a bill at all like the
lucky folks down in Tennessee who are getting ISDN for free during the
year long trial courtesy of BellSouth.  :-)
  
* CO info, CPE, Software, blah blah blah 

The CO is an AT&T 5ESS running Generic 5E8 software (Custom ISDN and
NI-1). Since I am about 3.1 miles from the CO, they put a BRITE card
in the local CEV (bigger than a SLC-96, it is mostly underground) to
extend the service to me.  Although the tariff calls for a distance
charge, OBT is not charging for this since they decided to offer "ISDN
Anywhere" (they will extend ISDN to you even if your CO is not ISDN
ready yet ... YMMV depending on where you live).

I have an EuRoNiS Planet ISDN NuBUS card in my Mac and an AT&T NT-1 w/
power supply (Customer Powered Equipment).  The Planet board has an
analog jack on it for a POTS handset.  I will be upgrading to the new
Planet board soon which supports the BONDING protocol and it will
allow me to combine both B channels for a 128KB connection.  I have
tested CLI's Cameo Desktop Videoconferencing unit and the picture
quality is very good. It is aggressively priced below any other
solution I have seen yet for ISDN.

I purchased EasyTransfer and TheLink as a bundle.  TheLink is half
router software which uses Apple Internet Router (AIR) to allow ISDN
WAN links between AppleTalk networks.  If you are a remote user, you
do not run AIR on your machine.  CallProducer (by Q*Sys Int'l)
provides an integrated telephony desktop and adds telephony/LAN/PBX
integration. Aspects (by Group Technologies) is a very powerful
document conferencing package.

* Where to go for ISDN info

The North American ISDN User's Forum (NIUF) has a catalog which is
helpful when searching for ISDN resources and can be ordered by
calling (800) 323-1088.  The Electronic Frontier Foundation has some
excellent white papers on ISDN (202) 544-9237.  The Corporation for
Open Systems Int'l is working on interoperability testing of CPE, for
more info call (800) 759-2674.  BellCore has various ISDN-related
publications and contact information, their ISDN hotline is (800) 992-
ISDN.


Ken Hester
CSC Partners, A Company of Computer Sciences Corporation
Internet: CSC.PARTNERS () applelink apple com      AOL: KHester
IMHO, all opinions expressed are mine and CSC can borrow them if they ask.