NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/dcom/isdn/1219

Text File | 1993-01-24 | 3.0 KB | 62 lines

Newsgroups: comp.dcom.isdn
Path: sparky!uunet!uunet.ca!xenitec!vances
From: [e-mail] (Vance Shipley)
Subject: Re: isdn "supermodem"
Organization: Xenitec Consulting, Kitchener, Ontario, CANADA
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 21:55:46 GMT
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Lines: 51

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Robert Macfarlane) writes:
> Here's an arrangment I would like to see:
>
>  customers      | POTS |          C.O.        | ISDN link |  my house
>
>   end user modem ------ modem --|-------------|
>   end user modem ------ modem --|             |
>   end user modem ------ modem --| multiplexer |         +---------------+
>   end user modem ------ modem --|             |=========| my BBS server |
>   end user modem ------ modem --|             |         +---------------+
>   end user modem ------ modem --|-------------|

You are describing "Modem Pooling", a feature built in to most ISDN COs.
Until recently the telephone company was forbade to get involved in this
but are starting to now.  It is pretty simple really, picture a modem
with the RS-232/V.35 side cabled into an ISDN TA.  You place a call to the
modem and are now talking into an ISDN TA.  Now make a second call to the
end user of ISDN (your BBS).  In a proper implementation your call could be
placed directly to the BBS (ISDN line) and the switch would know that you
required conversion and place the call path through a Modem/TA pair.

> I don't see how we could eliminate the modems, but we should be able to
> move them to the c.o., and have only one 2B+D line from the c.o. to the
> host, no?

The modems could be eliminated by using a "supermodem" at the BBS.  This is
a term coined in this newsgroup, don't expect to find one too soon, although
we have now heard reports of something similiar from Japan and the UK.

There is a commercial product which does something similar now.  The company
is Primary Access, they make an access server which connects to the telco
via T1 or PRA.  The interface between this box and your various equipment
is anything like T1, V.35, RS-232, analog TIE, etc.  In the application you
put forth you would have your telephone lines come in on a T1 to the Primary
Access box.  You would connect to the box with RS-232.  The box would handle
converting the V.32 (V.22, etc) incoming to the asynchronous character stream
which your modem would normally provide.

I am told that Compuserve use them for just this.

(Disclaimer: all the above is from talking to folks at trade shows.  I know
 nothing more about this company than what was said above.)

The fact that a product like this exists now should be enough proof that the
"supermodem" is both doable and marketable.  I'll buy one!



--
Vance Shipley
[e-mail]         [e-mail]         [e-mail]