"Ones And Zeros Define ISDN"

T1 - For Internet, Voice and Local Phone Service

ISDN is an acronym for Integrated Services Digital Network. Transmitting a series of ones and zeros, which is how to define ISDN, completes digital access. The older, analog telecommunication services take an audio signal and convert it to ones and zeros before sending it along to be decoded back to audio at the other end.

An ISDN line is comprised entirely of digital signals and uses these ones and zeros along the entire path from one access point to the next. There is no conversion of the signals back and forth between audio and digital, making for a better quality signal. These ones and zeros, quite literally, define ISDN.

Analog systems, also known as Plain Old Telephone Systems (POTS) will convert and transmit data from one access point to the next at 56 Kilobytes per second (Kbps).

These kilobytes used to define data transfer by the telecommunication services industry are actually defined by 1,000 byte markers, rather than the computer industry standard of 1,024 bytes per kilobyte. So 56 Kbps would be equivalent to 56,000 bytes of information. To service the expanding business telecommunication needs of large file transfers, video conferencing, or the transmission of multimedia application presentations, this access rate is not adequate.

The ones and zeros that define ISDN access rates, however, bring the connections speeds up to 128 Kbps. That is 128,000 bytes, which has proved adequate to handle even video conferencing. Dual bonded ISDN connection access can operate even faster, producing ISDN connection rates of up to 512 Kbps.

ISDN has been around the telecommunication services markets for over a decade. This means a wide availability to accessing ISDN services as opposed to some of the newer telecommunication technologies. It is projected that eventually ISDN will replace analog as POTS, as the newer, faster access technologies replace the simple 128 Kbps transmission rates of ones and zeros that define ISDN.