------------------------------ From: Mike Durkin Subject: Re: ISDN on DEC Alpha Computers Organization: Digital Equipment Computer Users Society Date: 15 Dec 94 06:41:22 -0500 Dale Farmer writes: > Today I was building a DEC Alpha workstation for a customer and > noticed on the back a little jack labeled ISDN, and packaged with it Might be related to this recent press announcement ... DigiBoard Announces Communications Support for Digital Equipment Corporation's Line of High-Performance Alpha Computer Systems MINNEAPOLIS, November 21, 1994 -- Digital Equipment Corporation and DigiBoard today announced asynchronous serial communications support for Digital's new generation of open AlphaServer systems running Microsoft's Windows NT V3.5 and Digital's DEC OSF/1 V3.0 operating systems. Also being announced is DigiBoard's support for ISDN and X.25 for Digital's 64-bit Alpha systems running Windows NT V3.5. ==================================== All Digital Partner News releases are archived on ftp.digital.com in the /pub/Digital/info/pr-news directory. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 06:49:44 -0500 From: johnl@iecc.com (John Levine) Subject: Re: Idea: Residential Always Gets CID; Business Blockable? > Question holds: who would want to remain anonymous when calling a > residential phone besides a prank caller, or someone cheating on his > wife who doesn't want his wife to know? Very few people want to remain anonymous when calling a residence. But since we're talking aboud Calling Number ID, anonymity has little to do with it. It doesn't ID the caller, it IDs the line from which the call is placed. Can you really say that you never, ever, make a call when it's none of the callee's business where you're calling from? The standard example is a doctor whose answering service screens the calls but returns patients' calls from home when they call evenings and weekends. Or you're a lawyer or consultant visiting client A, and you use the phone to call client B to let them know you're coming over. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.com Primary perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies" ------------------------------ From: clifto@indep1.chi.il.us (Clifton T. Sharp) Subject: Re: Idea: Residential Always Gets CID; Business Blockable? Organization: as little as possible Date: Thu, 15 Dec 1994 06:47:53 GMT In article clifto@indep1.chi.il.us (Clifton T. Sharp) writes: > A doctor returning patient calls from his home to save time might not > want patients to have a home phone to call at every hour of the day or > night. > [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: Are you saying its okay for the doctor > to waste *your* time by being very late for appointments (while you > sit there waiting) and not allow you to waste his? Sorry, but I do > not buy the argument, 'I am a professional and have a right to be > private at my home but you do not have a right to the same privacy > at home because you are only a commoner ...' If you want to talk to > me, you begin by introducing yourself, period. PAT] The very last time I had contact with my doctor was a time when I had suddenly gotten very sick with an infected chest. His office said he had left for the weekend; I expressed an urgency about reaching him, and they contacted him. Had he not called me from home, he wouldn't have had time to make his plane. Now, as it happens, he doesn't particularly care whether people do get his phone number through CNID. But in this particular situation, if he _did_ care, I would have ended up with a $300 emergency room bill instead of the $8 pharmacy bill under the originally proposed scenario, since he wouldn't have been able to block CNID delivery under it. Cliff Sharp WA9PDM clifto@indep1.chi.il.us ------------------------------ From: mcdonald@teleport.com (Dan McDonald) Subject: Re: T1 + Ethernet -> Fiber Date: Wed, 14 Dec 1994 18:58:19 PDT Organization: Teleport - Portland's Public Access (503) 220-1016 In article jhallen@world.std.com (Joseph H Allen) writes: > My company is upgrading both their computer system (my responsibility) > and their phone system (outside contractor). In the process, we are > installing a cable between two sites. Currently, this cable will > contain a fiber pair for linking two lans together and 75-pairs of > copper for the PBX. > The fiber costs $.45 per foot and the copper costs ~$1.10/foot. The > distance is 3000 ft. > I plan on using these little $100 boxes which convert ethernet to > fiber and use some extra PCs w/linux as bridges. > I would like to know if there are boxes which take both ethernet and > T1 (or whatever signal a pdx is likely to have) and multiplex them > together onto the fiber so that the copper cable is not needed. If > they exist, what are they called and how much are they? I know next > to nothing about PBXs, so do you think this likely to be worthwhile? > Is it likely that the PBX can use a single T1 (or whatever) more > easily than seperate copper pairs? Sure. There are lots of muxing techniques. Probably you'd run a single T3 and dedicate 10 Meg to the data, and the other 35meg to voice, giving you about 350 phone lines. But, the equipment to do that will cost much more than the cost of the copper cable ... On the other hand, if you just add two more pairs of fiber, you can run a T3 or even an OC-3 between your PBX's. If you make one a master and the other a slave, you can link them together as a single manageable unit. The cost of adding a couple of fibers, and eliminating a copper cable with all of the lightning protectors and tails, blocks, installation, etc, will probably come out low enough to be able to afford a couple of fiber cards for your PBX with enough change to afford a couple of real fiber bridges (please write for recommendations as to brands - I'd need more information as to your needs). Daniel J. McDonald home: mcdonald@teleport.com Telecom Designer work: 2397@idchq.attmail.com Industrial Design Corporation pots: 1.503.653.6919 Disclaimer: my views are my own and no one else's ------------------------------ End of TELECOM Digest V14 #448 ******************************