Once phone customers have ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), they can send faxes, computer data, and even video over existing telephone wires while they are making a voice call. But different regional phone companies have been using slightly different versions of the ISDN standard, just as different railroads once ran on different gauges in various parts of the country. You couldn't always get there from here, either on the early railroads or on an ISDN network.
Until recently. Last November, a consortium of telephone-related companies launched America's first all-digital telephone network by splicing 20 regional networks into one interoperable national network. This event was dubbed "The Golden Splice," a reference to the "Golden Spike" which completed the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Summit, Utah. Barbara Hackman-Franklin, the US Secretary of Commerce, was given the honor of placing the network's first public call. Officials expect that by 1994, 50 percent of phone customers will have access to ISDN. Modem manufacturers are rumored to be on the verge of releasing a $99 ISDN adapter capable of unleashing the full reach of video/data/graphics to anyone with a phone and a computer.
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Yeah, but will it improve the food? Get yer seat-back service here!
