My Journey to ISDN

ISDN -- It's Scott's Damn Nightmare

(The subtitle refers to the fact that Scott Adams takes responsibility for PacBell's deployment of ISDN being such a joke. The subtitle was added post-facto, I started writing this page before I had any trouble whatsoever.)


March 1998:: After having looked into pricing and aviailibility, I've decided to take the ISDN plunge. I use my home computer both for work and for play, and both could use more bandwidth, but a primary concern is improving my work connection bandwidth. For this reason I've chosen to pass on alternative technologies like DSL, cable modems, or DirectPC.

Since I need to make connections to both my work and to an ISP, I've done some searching around for what TA's (terminal adapters) people have gotten to work on either system. At work I asked some of the MIS people and users, for my ISP Best I posted to a internal Best newsgroup and checked their extensive listing of compatible equipment.

I also looked at Best's charges. Best's normal web-hosting account doesn't charge any more for 1 B-channel ISDN access than for 56K access (which I already had), although there is a $50. set-up fee.

With just that much digging, I found that a few routers and the US Robotics 128K internal TA were both being used succesfully at both sites, so I purchased one of those. There are a lot of downsides to internal TAs, one is that the phone service one can use through your ISDN TA only works when your computer is on. Another issue for many people is being able to see the blinking lights. For me, I'm happy with an internal--saving myself a COM port, as well as desk space. Your mileage may vary.

Sunday, April 5, 1998

Ordered ISDN line installation via Pacific Bell's web site.

Monday, April 6, 1998

Got a note back from Pacific Bell with an appointment for installation (April 27th) as well as information about what switch I'd be connected to, my new SPIDs, etc. SPIDs are basically phone numbers with other gunk attached on the end.

Tuesday, April 7, 1998

Wrote BEST to confirm the $50. upgrade fee, and to find out how much lead time they wanted for set-up.

Wednesday, April 8, 1998

Best support writes back, confirming $50. set-up and says that they'd like three days lead time on the set-up.

Monday, April 13, 1998

I recieved a letter from Pacific Bell, confirming my order. Here's a cost breakdown, and some notes. Like most phone bills, parts are completely impenetrable. The confirmation did however include copies of my new spiffy SPIDs, switch type, and so on.

What PacBell's Bill Calls It	Fixed Cost	Monthly Cost	My Comments

SDS Home ISDN - Basic Package	$125.00	$20.00	Simple-sounding enough.
Personal ISDN Line-Meas Rate	$34.75	$06.00	I assume that Meas stands for "measured".
Access for Interstate Calling Base Rate ISDN	--	$05.00	But I'm not going to call interstate. Can I get my $5./month back? (whine, whine)
Digital Line Port Charge BRI ISDN	--	$00.67	Huh? How does this differ from the first item?
WirePro^sm	--	$00.60	Optional, I sprung for this. It's wire-repair insurance.
Your Listing is Not Published	--	$00.30	I assume this is optional, this was set to be the same as my primary phone number, which is a logical enough default. If I don't use it as a voice line I'll probably kill this, though. (Go ahead, telemarketers. Call my modem. Make my day.)

*Total*	*$159.75*	*$32.57/mo.*

Wednesday, April 15, 1998

Called up Best and asked them to set up my Best account to accept 1-B channel ISDN connections. They said it wouldn't be a problem, and said it would be done within three business days.

Sunday, April 26, 1998

Sent Vicky (the person who sent the original confirmation note from PacBell) a note reiterating that I would be at home when they asked on the 27th and providing my home phone, cell phone, and email contacts again in case there was any difficulty.

Monday, April 27, 1998

Stayed home from work... About 3 p.m. a gentleman from PacBell came by and informed me that while there was going to be a delay due to problems on some phone cable in the neighborhood (I have seen a bunch of trucks in the neighborhood recently working on a very big cable, could be related), he could do the inside wiring now so that I wouldn't have to be at home for completion. I'm not sure how good I feel about this--I certainly would have appreciated being told this before today--but I wasn't looking forward to taking a day away from work to wait around, either. He gave me an estimate of about May 7th, but said that that was an estimate and that should call in for a more accurate estimate.

I called the 800 number I had recieved from Vicky by email (see item of April 6th.) They said they couldn't provide me with an estimate of when the line would be functional until they got a report from the installer, and suggested I call back after 11 a.m. tommorrow. You can be assured I will.

Tuesday, April 28, 1998

Called the 800 number again, after 11, as suggested. They still had no estimate as to when they'd have a new date estimate. Instead, they asked me to call "the P102 desk", phone number 1-800-736-9980, if I hadn't recieved a phone call by the end of the day tommorrow.

Wednesday, April 29, 1998

They didn't call.

The P102 desk number is a voice-jail system with no sane options.

I sent Vicky an email asking for a date. We'll see how that works. I'm getting upset. This is ridiculous.

Thursday, April 30, 1998

Vicky wrote back, and said she'd put in a call to the P102 desk herself and would let me know what was going on.

Friday, May 1, 1998

Recieved voice mail from Eva regarding my order. PacBell is hoping to install cable into my area by May 15th, that being their current limiting item. Eva's message did not make it clear how long after the completion of that cable it would take to get service, but there was an sense that this would be most of the remaining delay. She also promised further contact on or before May 15th, and left a direct phone number.

In better news, got final approval that my employer NCI would be covering my installation & monthly ISDN charges. Have I mentioned how much I like my employer?

Thursday, May 15, 1998: In the evening, realizing that, once again, I wasn't going to hear anything, I sent email to Vicky asking for any sort of response and an update.

Saturday, May 23, 1998: Not having heard from anyone now for twenty-two days, I call PacBell and reach an operator named Sharon who attempts to get me to call the P102 desk. I point out that the P102 desk doesn't actually exist, and after some amount of arguing on this point she offers to call them for me. After ten minutes on hold, she picks up again and says (surprise) that she couldn't reach anyone at the P102 desk number, and says that she'll look into it.
That evening, I recieved a message on my answering machine at home which suggested, but did not directly state, that I should now expect completion on June 24th.
Wednesday, May 27, 1998: Recieved email from Vicky saying she'd seen that I'd gotten a phone call, hoped I'd recieved it with its new completion date of June 29th. Note that that date was not the date I was given on the phone.
Wrote Vicky back asking for the number of her supervisor. She later writes back saying that there are several supervisors and that one will call me back. None ever does.
Wrote complaint to the California Public Utilities Commission. Here's a quote:

Thursday, May 28, 1998: Call Eva. Ask to speak to supervisor. Am told that a upervisor will "call me back." This next bit is pretty ludicrous... I believe them, and make the mistake of writing Vicky that I've got a lead on a supervisor on the Engineering side.
Of course, nobody ever calls. Duh.

Friday, May 29, 1998: Write back Vicky apologizing for cancelling my request for a supervisor too soon.


Monday, June 1, 1998: Vicky emails that she will try and talk to someone about my situation today.


Tuesday, June 2, 1998: Vicky sends email asking whether Eva's supervisor Kristen has called me. (She hasn't.)

mid-June (sorry, I don't have email records of a lot of this): Various phone conversations occur. PacBell, upon reciving the CPUC complaint, appoints somebody to be my new contact who returns my phone calls. They look into (trying) to quickly convert over one of my existing analog lines (thinking that an extra line might expedite matters), but decide that that won't help. Relatively quickly, the trucks start swarming. Perhaps I exaggerate with trucks swarming, but it seemed to me that there were at least 4-5 people at different points of my block all day on three consecutive working days (I think it was a Thurs., a Fri., and a Mon.) The CPUC complaint really got them moving, as far as I can tell.

Late June sometime, they announce completion. I come home that night and try it.

The process turns out to be pretty complicated. Part of it is that I have to go through the internal ISDN TA installation, and the USR documention isn't very good. The main line installation procedure mentions some jumpers for I/O settings, but hides the fact that NT users must switch these always in a back appendix. Second, there is a short between my analog line and the ISDN line, which reduces the analog line to being able to sometimes sustain 4K [sic] connections. (Which, terrible as it is, did let me check one thing or another.) The next morning I called USR (whatever day Win98 shipped, as an aside) and got a very helpful tech support person who worked me through several misconfiguration issues (really documentation problems on their end, says me, and says that support person), and what have you. ISDN actually works effectively with occasional errors but not dropped connections even with the crossed wires. That same day I call PacBell about the crossed wires and they come to fix it early the next morning.

Thursday, July 2, 1998: System working and tested to Best and to work.

Wednesday, July 29, 1998: Get first ISDN bill. Charges are about as advertised above.

Friday, July 31, 1998: Get notice from PacBell that they're crediting me $175 because of the installation delays, etc.

Home

Postscript: In mid-2000, I had DSL installed, and got rid of ISDN. I used speakeasy.net/Covad, and had an immensely pleasant and communicative experience, 13 days from order to a fully working connection, everything completed on time, phone calls answered, a change in my order mid-stream handled flawlessly. Boffo, a good one!