I spent a long number of years frustrated by analog dialup as I read stories about ISDN being used in places that like Europe.
But for a brief time just before the turn of the century, it made sense to get ISDN at home (in the US).
I already had a free 24x7 dialup account from a local ISP that I'd done some work for (the free lifetime account was part of my pay for a job).
And the local phone company was circulating mailers for ISDN circuits -- installed for free, and with a very low monthly rate, and with unmetered local calls.
So I asked my ISP buddies if it'd be OK, and they said sure, but asked that I keep the channel count low unless I was really using it.
It worked great.
I was able to set up my (ZyXEL) all-in-one ISDN router to keep one B channel connected at all times, and to connect the second B channel only when average bandwidth utilization required it.
The ZyXEL box also had two POTS jacks for connecting telephones. One of them was used for the house landline, and the other was connected to an analog modem for BBS duties.
The circuit had two phone numbers assigned, and either POTS port could use either B channel.
It worked slick: Always-on, low-latency internet that got faster on demand (connecting the second channel and logging it in took only a fraction of a second), with a static IP and customized reverse DNS.
And the dedicated POTS jacks worked great: These provided the highest quality telephone calls I had ever heard.
Management was automatic: Inbound calls would drop a B channel automatically if that was needed, and so would placing an outbound call.
It all happened transparently, thanks to a combination of software at all ends (my end, the phone company end, and the ISP end) with MLPPP running the show in IP land.
A beautiful symphony of weird telephony tricks, all working in time to be useful and reliable.
And I do not know if it was common, but my particular circuit was provisioned so as to allow me to specify any number I wanted for caller ID purposes.
So on outbound calls, I could change my Caller ID to any number I wished.
I never used this function for personal gain, but I could, for instance, call up a friend's place and have their mom's phone number (and name, due to how CID works) show up on Caller ID.
"Hey, yo. I'm totally at your mom's house right now. What? No, it is like that. No, she's sleeping right now -- you know how it is."
"Except: Just kidding. I'm at home by myself as usual, and just fucking around with my ISDN line because I have no life. But that was a neat trick, wasn't it?"
But for a brief time just before the turn of the century, it made sense to get ISDN at home (in the US).
I already had a free 24x7 dialup account from a local ISP that I'd done some work for (the free lifetime account was part of my pay for a job).
And the local phone company was circulating mailers for ISDN circuits -- installed for free, and with a very low monthly rate, and with unmetered local calls.
So I asked my ISP buddies if it'd be OK, and they said sure, but asked that I keep the channel count low unless I was really using it.
It worked great.
I was able to set up my (ZyXEL) all-in-one ISDN router to keep one B channel connected at all times, and to connect the second B channel only when average bandwidth utilization required it.
The ZyXEL box also had two POTS jacks for connecting telephones. One of them was used for the house landline, and the other was connected to an analog modem for BBS duties.
The circuit had two phone numbers assigned, and either POTS port could use either B channel.
It worked slick: Always-on, low-latency internet that got faster on demand (connecting the second channel and logging it in took only a fraction of a second), with a static IP and customized reverse DNS.
And the dedicated POTS jacks worked great: These provided the highest quality telephone calls I had ever heard.
Management was automatic: Inbound calls would drop a B channel automatically if that was needed, and so would placing an outbound call.
It all happened transparently, thanks to a combination of software at all ends (my end, the phone company end, and the ISP end) with MLPPP running the show in IP land.
A beautiful symphony of weird telephony tricks, all working in time to be useful and reliable.
And I do not know if it was common, but my particular circuit was provisioned so as to allow me to specify any number I wanted for caller ID purposes.
So on outbound calls, I could change my Caller ID to any number I wished.
I never used this function for personal gain, but I could, for instance, call up a friend's place and have their mom's phone number (and name, due to how CID works) show up on Caller ID.
"Hey, yo. I'm totally at your mom's house right now. What? No, it is like that. No, she's sleeping right now -- you know how it is."
"Except: Just kidding. I'm at home by myself as usual, and just fucking around with my ISDN line because I have no life. But that was a neat trick, wasn't it?"