An NSS Group White Paper

by Bob Walder

Table of Contents

Figure 1 - Comparison of ISDN and PSTN line installation/rental costs across Europe
Figure 2 - A comparison of ISDN versus PSTN Internet access performance
Figure 3 - Best/worst performance attained during testing
Figure 4 - The hidden cost of PSTN Internet access
Figure 5 - Relative costs in � sterling of data downloads from the Internet
Figure 6 - Technical pay-back period by country.

INTRODUCTION - ISDN and the Internet - The Opportunities

It's difficult to imagine anything in the world of computing which will ever emerge to rival the intensity of the Internet explosion we're all witnessing presently.

Sat around for years, ticking away like a time bomb waiting to explode, the Internet has surpassed even the mega-hyped Windows 95 in popularity and inches of print. Not only has it captured the imagination of the general public, but in the business community the Internet is increasingly being taken seriously. Why? Because it offers cheap and easy mail access and a way of buying and selling products and services. So rather that simply being a hobbyist service for the spotty teenager with his fifty-dollar modem and mail-order PC, the Internet has become all-things-to-all- computer-users. This means that whereas initially the idea of a "serious" networking vendor making money out of the Internet was dismissed, now it has real appeal.

So instead of an Internet access "package" being restricted to cheap modems and shareware, it now equally might encompass an ISDN router used by home workers or office users with shared LAN access. Even the major telecommunications service providers have accepted that the Internet exists and introduced Internet-oriented service options aimed at the corporate business market rather than the home/hobbyist sector. Often these combine classic public data networking services with Internet access in one package. So the Internet is an option for both small and big-time users alike.

What has both captured the imagination of the end users and given the vendors the opportunity for mass sales is the world-wide nature of the Internet; the way it shrinks the globe. It doesn't matter where you are - US, Europe, Australia, Japan, South Africa... the Internet is the Internet. You can just as easily gain access to a WEB server sat in an office several thousands of miles away as you can in the office next door. The method, user interface, basically everything... is the same as far as the user is concerned.

Service providers have been springing up on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as in other parts of the world, so local access points are relatively easy to find. This means Internet access costs are kept down and so make the whole package attractive on a financial basis. It is also extending the range of options for the heavy-duty business end of the market as suggested earlier. One of the key potential service for Internet access is undoubtedly ISDN. We will now look at the current state of the ISDN market, with some examples of comparative pricing between countries. As will be seen from the examples, the affordability of an ISDN connection varies hugely depending on where you are based.

From a technical point of view, ISDN has made sense as a WAN service ever since companies started to interconnect remote LANs.

Its flexibility in providing bandwidth as you need it, the ability to carry any type of traffic and the familiarity of its PSTN-like connection make it the logical successor to the huge number of analogue PSTN, X.25 and other networks still out there across the world. The networking hardware vendors - particularly in the UK, Germany, France and Australia, and more latterly the US - quickly caught on to the technology with a wide range of products having now been available for a couple of years or more.

With the US finally discovering the beauty of ISDN, suddenly there are a whole raft of ISDN devices appearing, many aimed at the SOHO or Internet access market. This is driving the cost of the hardware down dramatically. Whereas just 12 months ago you would be looking to pay in excess of $500 for a very simple terminal adapter and $1500 plus for an ISDN bridge/router, these prices have more than halved recently and are still on the way down as the market increases in size.

Looking briefly at the ISDN products themselves, initially it seemed that the terminal adapter (TA) was the primary focus of the hardware vendors, particularly in Europe. As a direct replacement for the modem, offering Hayes compatibility and support therefore for existing comms software, it was felt that the TA would obliterate the modem. Of course it hasn't happened. No one wanted to go to the cost of replacing their analogue lines with digital alternatives, plus the cost of the TA�s themselves, simply in order to get a "faster modem".

It was the LAN to LAN interconnect market and the introduction of the access router which enabled ISDN to find its true vocation hardware-wise. Now we have a proliferation of ISDN remote access devices at all levels of the market, from personal PC-card based routers to big modular systems. At the entry level in particular, the ISDN "personal router" lends itself ideally to the role of Internet access device. Bear in mind, however, that we could easily be talking about novice users in this environment and therefore the device must be as simple to use as possible.

While a complex business network has so many ifs and buts that it is near impossible to provide a "common" installation, configuration and management routine which almost auto-runs, in a situation where you have a huge percentage of users with a standalone PC running Windows, or simple NetWare LAN, the set-up of the ISDN device can - and should - be simplified as much as possible. The basic set-up option with the Congo is certainly a step in the right direction here. However, a totally Windows-based set-up, like the sort of software Shiva has been shipping with its LanRover comms servers for some time now, is the best solution when dealing with Windows-oriented users.

Of course, the hardware is only part of the story. While the ISDN hardware market is now well and truly established and largely consistent throughout the world, the same cannot be said of the ISDN service options. Even within Europe the costs involved in both installing and running ISDN connections varies hugely, though the same is also true of PSTN analogue lines. Look outside of Europe, particularly the US, and the plot thickens further.

After a very slow start, the US has got into ISDN big time. With the competitive nature of the communications service provider market there, low prices were always a likely outcome once ISDN was accepted as a suitable medium. The result is basic rate installations being offered at as low as $18 a shot with very low line rental and usage costs alongside. At these sort of prices, ISDN is clearly an option for home users looking for fast Internet access as well as business users. The same cannot be said for everywhere however, not least the UK. Not only has the coverage across the UK been slower to roll out than expected - we could tell you of our own problems in getting a line installed only 12 months ago in deepest Bedfordshire - but ISDN prices have remained far, far higher than they should be. Maybe partly because of this, ISDN-based Internet access is hardly widespread. If our own experiences of trying to obtain a temporary UK ISDN Internet connection for testing for this report were anything to go by, this is hardly surprising.

Neither Pipex nor Demon - two of the biggest names in Internet access in the UK - could provide us with an ISDN connection. In the end Warrington-based Unet stepped in and provided us with a connection, though this was an existing service provided to Baynton-Thompson Networks in Wokingham. Getting back to pricing, even allowing for the occasional installation offer, you only need to compare prices with some of the European ISDN offerings, let alone the US, to realise how expensive the UK service is and how this has again worked against ISDN Internet access. On the other hand, in countries such as France, Germany and the US, ISDN pricing does encourage its use for Internet access. In Germany, for example, ISDN is now being installed as standard, so there is clearly a huge market here, as local ISDN specialists such as AVM have noted, bearing in mind the company�s recent focus on entry-level products.

If we try and analyse why ISDN pricing is so different from country to country, it basically boils down to protecting existing - and lucrative - services. The price differences are also in part due to the relative popularity of the service and how it is used. For example, in France ISDN is very popular for voice but not data, whereas in the UK and - to a lesser extent - Germany it is primarily used for transporting data traffic.

A great deal has to do with protecting established markets however, not least the proliferation of private leased-line networks in the UK. In contrast to the UK's heavy investment in private networks via Kilostream or the 2Mbps Megastream lines, most of Europe's businesses rely on the public networks to carry their traffic. This, in turn, is partly because the public networks are that much better, cheaper and more advanced than in the UK.

In the US, WAN bandwidth has long been far cheaper than Europe, so it is easy to see why ISDN is being introduced at such competitive rates.

In the European ISDN world, top of the pile when it comes to installed base is Germany, while France has the second most established ISDN network in Europe. France Telecom was boasting national availability by 1990, a time at which you had to be in the right place in the UK to get the digital service (so little has changed there). Called Numeris, the service has been undergoing conversion to Euro-ISDN during this year, which is resulting in a planned price increase but despite this it is still significantly cheaper to install an ISDN line in France than in the UK. Germany is significantly cheaper still when it comes to both digital and analogue services.

Using France and England, we will take a couple of cost examples for starters, based on normal telephone (PSTN) lines which will serve to emphasise the differences. Approximate costs relative to England will be calculated for the rest of Europe based on current exchange rates. Let us say then, that you're setting up a branch office somewhere in England and want to install 10 phone lines. Though rates vary depending on offers at the time, you will end up paying somewhere between �1000 and �1600 for the installation of those lines. In France, the most you would pay in the same situation is 10xFF250=FF2500 (about �300 at current exchange rates).

Bear in mind that, in use, rates vary depending on time of day (for example, it's cheap rate in France during the lunch period!) and the distance of the call. As an example of costs at peak rates you'll get three minutes per unit (7p per unit) for a local call and 19 seconds for calls in excess of 100km. Off-peak this extends to six minutes and 38 seconds respectively and off-off peak (between 10-30pm and 6am) extends again to nine minutes and 54 seconds respectively. This cheap rate is, of course, very significant in business terms as it is the time of day you would choose to perform all the hefty data downloads and uploads.

If we use the same examples relating to the basic rate (i.e. 64kbps) ISDN service, we get the following figures. Installation in the UK is anything up to �400 per line, depending again on limited availability offers. So using the same 10 line branch office example as before, this gives us a total installation cost of between �2000 and �4000. Rental per line is then another �300 per annum, so �3000 per annum in total.

Over in France, installation costs are currently FF675 though this will increase to FF1500, as a result of the changeover to the Euro-ISDN standard (BTs ISDN service is already Euro-ISDN conformist). The increase in put down to the licensing costs involved in conforming to Euro-ISDN. So, depending on when you install the lines, the equivalent installation cost will be either FF6750 (�815) or FF15000 (approx �1800). Rental is then another FF200 per line per month, producing a total annual rental bill for the 10 lines of FF24000 (�2890) per annum.

Let us now look at other European countries' prices. In the Netherlands for example, an ISDN connection will cost you 600 guilders (�222), a PSTN line 210 guilders (�78) with respective rentals of 85 guilders (�31.50) and 28 guilders (�10.37) per month. Germany charges just DM130 (�52) for an ISDN installation and DM65 (�26) for a PSTN line with rentals of DM64 (�25.60) and DM24.6 (�9.85) per month, respectively. Even generally expensive countries like Denmark are significantly cheaper than the UK when it comes to ISDN with an installation cost of Kr1500 (�150) and Kr1200 (�120) for a PSTN line. Monthly rental charges are Kr450 (�45) and Kr315 (�31.50) respectively.

So currently, France, Germany and the US, from an entry-cost point of view, offer the most convincing cases for ISDN-based Internet access. In particular the combination of LAN to LAN interconnect and Internet access options is a strong argument to use for promoting ISDN in the business - rather than home-user - community. Having a single, high-bandwidth gateway for both services is clearly both cost effective and easy to manage. It also offsets the initial costs of setting up an ISDN installation and connection.

In summary:

The possibilities for selling ISDN devices into both small and large sites for both Internet access and LAN to LAN connections are increasing daily.

Standardisation of ISDN services is helping the cause but widely varying pricing between different countries is the major stumbling block presently.

In order to appeal to the mass market Internet user, the ISDN access device must be made very simple to configure and use, ideally so it is like any other application - i.e. Windows-based.

Over the past 12 months the computer world seems to have gone Internet crazy.

From home hobbyist to senior IT director, huge interest has been shown in this world-wide internetworking service. But how suitable is it for mainstream business pan-European (and beyond) networking? Originating in the US Defence Department over 20 years ago, the Internet is now a true global information network linking millions of users and networks in almost every country of the world. It is estimated that the number of Internet connections is currently growing at 10% per month. And there are now real commercial benefits to be gained from establishing an Internet connection. But it is as important to be aware of its limitations as of its benefits and particularly - where business is concerned - any potential security problems.

Performance is also a key issue. You cannot expect to guarantee delivery of a file between two remote European offices in the same time as you could on a private network, for example. Also, modern remote access methods such as remote node, where you effect a remote connection to a LAN in the same way you would a local based file server, are not possible with the Internet. Typical Internet use involves sending and receiving E-mail messages and access to information services which provide hyper-text systems with embedded graphics, sound recordings and video clips.

It is important to remember though that none of these services are provided as part of the Internet itself, which should be thought of as the underlying communications system that supports these services. The Internet is roughly equivalent to the phone system, in that an Internet connected computer can connect to any other computer given its Internet address (which is the equivalent to a phone number). This basic service is used by software applications to provide enhanced services such as e-mail and access to information services. But to gain the benefits of the Internet, two basic components are needed, a connection and selection of add-on services.

The Internet provides a wide range of the latter, while there are now numerous access methods available from a wide range of suppliers. In addition to the most common services outlined above such as E-mail, there are other services which provide for remote terminal connections and file transfer links to remote systems. Recently services such as Gopher and World Wide Web have emerged and become extremely popular. Both of these are distributed information services. Distributed means that any Internet user can provide an element of the overall service.

As an example, an advertising service on World Wide Web might include a list of dealers for a particular product. Selecting an entry on this list would automatically connect to that dealers World Wide Web server to enable you to retrieve and display the information provided.

The information shown is under complete local control and could include whatever the dealer wanted you to see including photographs and possibly video clips.

Gopher and World Wide Web are particularly significant because they provide a new level of service on the Internet and open up new opportunities for information providers and information consumers. Herein lies a potential problem however. Most of these companies are both information providers and information consumers; providers because they will want to publicise their products and services and consumers because users need information to carry out their job function.

So to meet these needs, an Internet connection must support incoming and outgoing links, each of which poses its own security threat. The most obvious threat is the risk of unauthorised access to systems connected to a local network. Some level of incoming access must be granted for incoming E-mail to be received and for information services to be offered.

A less obvious security problem arises from linking a network to the Internet, when all systems on that network are then potentially visible to the outside world. There are a number of tools which enable a network to be probed to discover the systems connected to it. In the wrong hands this provides detailed information on the number and type of computers running. Not only is this information itself potentially sensitive but every system on the local network, including desktop PCs, becomes a potential target for break in attempts.

Outgoing access to the Internet also introduces security problems. Every outgoing connection carries information on the internal structure of a network. Each E-Mail message sent carries the identity of the sender in a format which includes information on the computer used. So an E-mail message from [email protected] may be acceptable for internal use, but the details should be kept hidden from a competitor.

Solving this potential security threat could obviously be the difference between using the Internet seriously or not at all. One option is to use a firewall server which isolates your network from the Internet. There are several such products around, both software and hardware based, varying in price from a few hundred pounds to something like Sea Change's Janus firewall server - a dedicated UNIX based system costing over $15,000. It's a classic case of "yet get what you pay for", so don't expect bullet-proof protection from other Internet users unless you're prepared to pay what's required to do so.

Solve the security problem though and you have access to what should be a valuable means of communication between remote offices, whether just in Europe or world-wide. As a pure date network however, the bandwidth is not really there to make it a viable proposition if you need guaranteed fast delivery of information. At least not yet.

To some extent, where hardware is concerned the Internet is a bit of an equaliser. In other words, Netscape is Netscape and the Internet provider - e.g. Pipex - is the Internet provider, regardless of whether your connection is via 14.4kbps or 28.8kbps modem, or ISDN. Performance will be the big differentiating factor, but some of the benefits clearly found with ISDN over async modem connections in the remote LAN connect world will be less clearly defined.

What exactly are we talking about here? Well, we're talking about all the features which have been developed to make ISDN devices the ideal solution for remote LAN access and take advantage of the rapid call set-up times it offers. Intelligent line management, protocol spoofing, multi-level filtering, redundant paths, SNMP management... the list goes on and on. All features which can be quoted ad nauseam to demonstrate why the ISDN bridge/router, rather than the modem, is the only true answer to today's remote node LAN connection scenario. After all, who wants to wait 30 seconds every time they want to reconnect to the LAN? But Internet access is typically session-based. In other words, you go onto it the come off it and carry on doing something completely different - e.g. word processing. So, other than the initial time spent waiting for the modem to make the connection, performance and - to a lesser extent - reliability are the primary benefits an ISDN Internet connection offers over a modem-based equivalent.

Of course, looking beyond pure Internet access, there are stacks of arguments in favour of ISDN. The most obvious is that a device such as the ACC Congo can be used for true remote LAN connections as well as Internet access. The second most obvious is that ISDN itself provides two 64kbps channels in Basic Rate format, so you can use data and voice simultaneously. Basically, at this point you can quote any of many reasons why ISDN is beneficial over async modem PSTN as part of the general argument in favour of the former, not just as an Internet access tool but as much more than just that.

But - there is still the problem of cost. The cost of the ISDN device, the cost of the ISDN line installation, the cost of the line rental... all are significantly more expensive than an analogue modem equivalent need be. That said, ISDN devices - notably in the form of PC cards - are dropping in price dramatically. Electronic Frontier, for example, is offering a complete ISDN Internet access package for under five hundred pounds. At the same time, the 28.8kbps (V.34) modems are still relatively high priced, many approaching $500 or more list price, depending on the country they're being sold in. Line installation is typically a quarter of the price however, as is line rental, so all of this will be built into the buyer's equations.

In a LAN to LAN interconnect environment, the differences between asynchronous modem and ISDN device performance are easy to identify.

But in the Internet environment, thanks to the complications of multiple-hop routes, the dependence on the service provider and the WEB sites you are accessing, the are many complications which can cloud the performance issue. Features sets should also be considered as important as outright performance. Considering the latter first, typically modems are available with maximum performances (pre-compression) of 14400bps and 28800bps. But all modems now also come with Group 3 fax integrated which is a convenience factor for the SOHO user. Most also come with some kind of comms/fax software included, usually Windows-based. One emerging technology, but one which has shown little in terms of shipping products to date, is the digital simultaneous voice and data (DSVD) modem, which enables concurrent voice and data traffic from a single modem over a standard telephone line. Among the handful to have announced DSVD products to date is Multitech. The company is looking to package the modem as part of its Personal Communications System - fax, voice, datacomms, answer-phone and document conferencing all in a single system. In this case, features become more important than outright performance.

While the modem hardware is clearly the baseline where performance is concerned, often it is the communications software or OS platform, rather than the modem hardware itself which provides the true limit. This also needs to be recognised when you're looking to extract maximum performance with an ISDN connection. While the ISDN device may offer 64kbps, 128kbps or more pre-compression data transfer rates, in practise this is unlikely to be achieved (or even close to it) in an Internet environment. However, the same reasoning can be applied to modem-based connections as the figures below indicate.

We ran tests based on a Pentium/Windows 95 PC, using Netscape software to access the Internet via U-Net, a UK based service provider offering both PSTN and ISDN Internet access. An ACC Congo router was used for ISDN access configured with a single 64kbps channel. This was compared with asynchronous modem based access at 14.4kbps and 28.8kbps. Even visually, there is a clear difference between ISDN and modem based access. When browsing, the screens appear at a reasonable speed under ISDN but, particularly with the 14.4kbps modem, you can spend minutes just waiting for a complex screen display to upload. The current trend seems to be for more and more complicated graphical masterpieces on the WEB sites, so just for browsing, speed is increasingly important.

When it comes to downloading files from the Internet, the story is very similar. As a test we downloaded binary files ranging in size from 430KB to 1.6MB - demo software and router firmware update files - which are typical of the kind of data a business user would wish to download from the Internet.

These were taken from WEB servers based on the West coast of the US, though we were accessing the Internet in Wokingham, England. The ISDN connection gave us an average data transfer rate of 37.51kbps, well below the basic 64kbps line speed, but this a fair representation of Internet access, particularly during US daytime when the Internet is at its busiest. In quieter periods we have seen 80kbps plus data transfer rates achieved, though clearly this depends on the data type being transferred and therefore how effective the data compression routine can be.

These transfer rates were significantly greater than any we were able to achieve with the asynchronous modem connections. At best we achieved 15.2kbps with a V.34 (28.8kbps) modem. The worst rates we achieved, with a 14.4kbps connection at peak time (5pm UK time), was a completely unusable 0.89kbps!

In Summary:

There are two key points which must be made in conclusion, based on the above.

Internet access speed is governed by many factors beyond the speed of your remote access hardware. The Internet service provider, the WEB server site you are browsing and the time of day are all critical factors in the performance levels you will achieve.

In all cases, while acknowledging the effects of the above factors, ISDN access proved significantly quicker than asynchronous modem based access, whether just browsing or actually downloading data from the Internet. In some cases it made the difference between useable and completely unusable. This, in particular, is a key point for business Internet use.

The Cost Justification of Using ISDN

It is clear that ISDN will always offer performance benefits over asynchronous modem connection to the Internet. It is also clear that in some countries - notably Germany - ISDN installation costs bear no penalty over the PSTN equivalent and can be effectively cheaper bearing in mind that you actually get two 64Kbps and one 16Kbps channels for your money. In some countries such as the UK, however, the cost justification process for implementing ISDN Internet access can be more complicated.

Figure 6 illustrates relative pay-back periods for implementing ISDN over PSTN for Internet access. In other words, based on different usage patterns it shows how long it takes to catch up the initial overhead spent on any extra cost involved in the ISDN installation and router/modem access devices.

For the sake of getting a reasonable "average" return, we will assume the same unit usage rate for both service types - ISDN and PSTN - 25 seconds per unit and 5p per unit. We will take the cost of a quality-brand high-speed modem - e.g. Tricom Tornado V34 - as �500, a high-quality 14.4Kbps modem as �200 and a quality-brand standalone ISDN router - e.g. ACC Congo - as �800, all rounded-up list price examples.

In all cases it is possible to get lower priced examples, to the extent that the most simplistic example (function wise) of each device type would mean a maximum price difference of less than �150 between 14.4Kbps modem and ISDN device (a PC card based example). This would sway the balance hugely in ISDN�s favour. Nor are we taking into account the benefits of ISDN�s tri-channel Basic Rate architecture, thereby giving effectively two or three lines (depending on the country) for a single installation.

Based on identical Internet access and data download patterns, the tables below show how quickly the extra initial cost of ISDN will pay for itself, taking into account initial costs plus rental charges. The difference in the rental charge itself is covered by the time saved using ISDN on relatively light usage, based on the performance difference we achieved in the tests outlined in this report. Bear in mind that we obtained an average throughput around five times better with ISDN than PSTN and the worst cost example puts ISDN rental at only three times the cost of PSTN.

Taking the UK as an example, line rental is approximately 38p a day for PSTN and 82p a day for ISDN - a disparity of 44p a day. Using the examples below we can see that if you are downloading between 200K and 500K a day (or the equivalent time spent making connections, uploading screens into memory etc.) ISDN is already paying for itself, rental wise. It is the initial costs, based on our model, which take time to reclaim.

�Even where there is no clear point at which ISDN becomes technically more cost effective than modem-based Internet access (where online time and data downloading is minimal), it is worth bearing in mind that, during testing, there were many occasions when the Internet proved simply unusable without the speed of ISDN. If we then take the same model but build in the cost of a user�s (say a middle manager�s) time lost waiting for file downloads and other operations to finish using PSTN rather than ISDN Internet access, a more realistic and yet more favourable argument in favour of ISDN is delivered.

Based on the test results highlighted in the earlier table showing "A Comparison of ISDN versus PSTN Internet Access Performance", we can see the following extra costs arise, based on an earnings rate of �30 an hour:

As the earnings rate will vary from user to user, it can only be used as a general guide. The cost and pay-back tables which follow are therefore based on pure performance only.

Being a technology which carries both voice and data (including video of course), ISDN has appeal to a broad range of customers and on a broad range of fronts.

Initially there were many variations in ISDN services between different countries, making cross-border communications difficult. But the emergence of the Euro-ISDN (Q.931) standard has led to greater stability and inter-operability between European neighbours, if not world-wide.

This is an attempt to provide a common ISDN implementation across Europe and, against the odds, seems to be succeeding. Based around two key elements established initially by ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), Euro-ISDN has been defined as two types of ISDN access, with two ISDN bearer services and five supplementary services. The first access mechanism - basic - is the familiar two 64kbps "B" channels plus a 16kbps "D" channel. The second access mechanism - primary - is the 2Mbps service (30x64 plus a 64kbps "D" channel) for the larger sites.

The bearer services are the telecommunications services which provide the capability for the transmission of signals between user network interfaces - the interface between the terminal and the network. These were the critical components in the standardisation of ISDN across Europe - a Godsend for vendors.

Five supplementary services have been defined to date, as follows:

• Calling line identification presentation
• Calling line identification restriction
• Direct dialling via a private ISDN (e.g. an ISDN PBX)
• Multiple subscriber number multiple numbers to a single interface)
• Terminal portability (where you can move a terminal from one point to another during a call)

These will be supplemented further in practice by the individual countries offering Euro-ISDN. While we are still very much in a development stage, ISDN service compatibility between European countries is now giving relatively few problems. It should therefore not be seen as a reason for not moving to the digital standard.

One of the most interesting potential areas of development in pan-European data and telecommunications, but again one which has its problems, has been in the former Eastern Block. The tearing down of the Berlin wall some years ago was symbolic in many ways. Not only did it remove the physical separation between the East and the West in Europe, but also opened up all other forms of communication between the two, previously separate sides of the continent. Not least data and telecommunications.

With a huge latent demand east of the old Iron Curtain for communicating with Western Europe and the rest of the world, and a western civilisation keep to exploit any marketing opportunities arising out of the liberation of the Eastern Block, it is not surprising that improving telecommunications has been seen as one way of bringing it into line with the west. Now that tele and data communications are increasingly being combined in a single service and single strategy, the chance to move in one step from antiquated analogue voice systems to contemporary digital voice and data networks has presented itself in timely fashion.

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