It was a struggle. It didn't have to be.
I thought I'd share my experience. If you're interested in neither ISDN nor tales of woe, stop
here.
Why ISDN?
I decided to get residential ISDN because I had to face the fact that I was never going to get an adequate analog telephone connection to my house. The signal quality at the ranch is so bad, I could only rarely complete a connection to the email server at my office. Once on, I could never stay on long enough to do anything. The phone company was called to take a look at the line more than once. Nothing did any good. This was with a 19200 modem. The prospect of paying ANY amount for a faster modem and losing most of the signal to line noise did not appeal to me.
I explored the option of getting a cable modem. After 5 phone calls to various entities, I was rewarded with a call 4 days later informing me that, yes, there *is* cable TV service in my neighborhood (Thompson Station), but it was not contracted by Intermedia's @Home service, so I could not use it to get Internet access. So a cable modem was not an option for me.
Have you ever tried to phone the phone company? It's surprisingly hard to do. They used to have their ISDN services number prominently posted. Now, I had to dig around for it; I heard a lot of hold music and punched a lot of buttons in automated phone menus, "to better serve" me. Eventually, I was able to negotiate the rapids of the BellSouth phone menu labyrinth without ending up in a dead-end eddy, and ended up talking to a human who signed me up. And tried to sign me up for a whole lot of other stuff. Tried to sell me an ISDN terminal adapter for $200+. I declined; an acquaintance had offered to sell me a Motorola BitSurfr Pro that he still had lying around after his own efforts at setting up home ISDN had come to nought. I did let BellSouth sell me a hardware handshaking cable, though, thinking that whoever inherits my modem would probably like a cable to go with it. The work order was put in for two weeks later.
While I was waiting for the work order to go through, I set up an account with Telalink. I'd been paying another provider for web-hosting services, but these did not include dialup. Without dialup, I would end up with two very very fast and clean voice phone lines... and no way to get to the Internet. I needed an account with a local provider. I opted for Telalink's 64K BRI dialup ISDN account. Comes with 11 MB of Web storage (so this means I'll cancel my other hosting account, hoping that they will let me keep a redirect there so that people who have my old site bookmarked will be able to find my new location).
Telalink gave me the settings to put in my TCP/IP, and PPP control panels. (If I were using "Classic Networking," these would be MacTCP and PPP, respectively.) The settings are really simple... simpler than the settings for analog dialup:
In TCP/IP, I select "Connect via FreePPP"; all the other settings are supplied by the PPP server when you connect; the only other things I had to enter were the addresses of the Domain Name Servers at Telalink. These I have memorized, from having to enter them into the machines at work: 207.152.1.2 and 207.152.1.4.
Oh, it's also a good idea to set TCP/IP to be active all the time; so I changed my user level to "admin" under the Edit menu, which made an "Options" button appear in the TCP/IP window; I clicked it and in the resulting dialog box I UNchecked the "Load only when needed" checkbox. I don't know why this is checked by default, nor why it is hidden; I do know that it sometimes causes trouble for users of cable modems because the folks Intermedia hires to install their cable modems don't always know to look for it.
I found an old copy of FreePPP (I finally got to use my AMUG Tech CD-ROM) and installed it. Telalink had advised me to use FreePPP, any version number from 1.0.5 on. I'm using 2v.5 and it seems to work okay.
The settings in FreePPP are not very complicated, either. I tried using the "Autodetect modem init string" but PPP reported that the modem was not responding, so I put in the standard AT&F that makes any right-thinking modem use its factory settings. It works with the BitSurfr. I selected "Motorola BitSurfr 64K" from the list of modem setups and told it to use the modem port. I entered the port speed (I used 57Kbps, but I might try setting it higher just to see what happens), my account name and password (previously set up with Telalink over the phone), and their server telephone number (again, memorized: 777-1111). With Telalink's dialup ISDN, there's no connection script to put in. The only other thing I wanted to do in PPP was to UNcheck the box that's labeled "allow TCP applications to connect automatically." Folks like to be able to launch Netscape, type in a URL and have it dial for them; but with this box checked, you may find your PPP suddenly waking up and connecting when you least expect it. Like, every time you boot up.
That's all the setup there is to do on the Mac. There's no special software to install (unless you count FreePPP).
Meanwhile...
Only two days after the date when BellSouth said they would have my ISDN line installed, I got the call from the technician. The line was installed, and service had been switched over. My phone number stays the same, but now it is an ISDN line. I tried to ask every question I could think of, and he tried to answer them; but clearly what I was worried about was irrelevant to him.
He left a doorhanger in my mailbox that had "the relevant information" on it: my SPIDs, the circuit ID number, and the switch type.
Well, it turns out that this was NOT all the info I needed to know in order to set up my end of the ISDN service. But I didn't realize that until two days later, anyway, because I had other problems.
The acquaintance I bought my BitSurfr from is a bit of a Luddite. Wants as little to do with computers and technology as possible, and feels gratification when they don't work right... so he's always subconsciously finding ways to sabotage them. It didn't seem important to him to put the AC power supply in the box when he brought it to me. When I found this out, I was at home in Thompson Station... with phone lines that had been switched to ISDN service... and no ISDN terminal adapter. I had to drive to a pay phone to call him and ask him to search for the power brick ("Well, it's probably black; it probably has two or three prongs sticking out of it that you plug into the wall; and it will have a cord on it with a little round plug about 1/4" in diameter, with, probably, 8 pins in it. Sure, I'll wait....") ...and when he found it, I had to drive to his house in Fairview in, by now, the dead of night, to pick it up from his porch.
Who says the Internet never gets you out of the house? (And I wasn't even connected yet.)
The BitSurfr had been packaged for a Wintel computer. Whatever software it had come with was Windows software; just as well, because it wasn't in the box, either. (Good thing I had allowed BellSouth to sell me a modem cable.) There was a booklet titled "Getting Started" and a folded card correcting the mistakes in the booklet. And some handwritten notes, correcting mistakes in the card. The Getting Started booklet stated up front that there were three ways to configure the BitSurfr. The easiest way, which needed no explanation at all, was to use the BitSurfr Setup software that comes bundled with it; the second way was to use a terminal emulation program to connect to the device and use its built-in LocalMenu configuration program; and it alluded to a mysterious third way to do it using standard modem AT commands. The booklet then launched into five pages of explanation about how to use the easiest method, the one that "needed no explanation." About the second way, "LocalMenu", it had but a single paragraph, saying only that it was a menu-driven program built into the firmware of the device, and to get to it you use a terminal emulation program (like Zterm, on the Mac).
Well, since my Luddite friend had apparently thrown the bundled software away, and since it was Windows-only anyway, I cranked up Zterm and set it to emulate a VT100 terminal. I typed "AT" and hit a carriage return. The BitSurfr responded: "OK". So far, so good. I typed "AT@LOCALMENU" to invoke the setup program; the BitSurfr responded: "A VT100 terminal is required for LocalMenu." I checked Zterm's settings. Yup, VT100. Try again. Same thing. Quit Zterm. Relaunch. Try again. Same thing. Reboot Mac, relaunch Zterm. Same thing. Try other terminal emulation settings. Same thing. Fiddle with port speed, handshaking, local echo, every control Zterm offers, whack the monitor a few times for satisfaction. Nada. Nothing I could do would fool that little black box into accepting my Mac as a 20-year-old dumb terminal.
So... what was that other option again? Configure using AT commands? Well, I've done tons of that kind of thing with analog modems; what could be so hard about it? Let's see: what are the commands...? "Configuring the BitSurfr Pro Using AT Commands: See User Guide."
"User Guide" ? ? ? ?
My Luddite friend had not believed in the old ink-on-paper technology, either. He'd included the "Getting Started" booklet, no doubt, as an oversight, but the "User Guide" was too obscure; probably just there as packing material; probably not important to the next owner of the device --> me. And it was too late to call him, even if I didn't have to get in my car and drive somewhere to do it. At least I wouldn't have to worry about the phone ringing that night and waking me up.
The next day, I (belatedly) proceeded to put some backup systems into place. I was beginning to appreciate BellSouth's advice not to discontinue "regular" phone service when you get your ISDN line. Their reasoning is that, in the event of a power outage, the ISDN line would go dead, because the terminal adapter (the BitSurfr) would no longer be powered. My reasoning, on the other hand, was that, in most cases when our power has gone out in the past, the phones have gone out with it (because someone wrapped a muscle car around a telephone pole); and if I had to add the ISDN charges on top of my regular phone bill and the ISP charges, then I couldn't afford ISDN anyway. (As it is, I wonder what will happen when my wife discovers our Primestar no longer works...? She already suspects that the set top box is missing....)
But I was thnking about how useless the BitSurfr would be if anything ever happened to its power brick... and something ALWAYS happens to the powerbricks. They go bad. I phoned Telalink, asking if they had any spare powerbricks on hand for the old BitSurfrs; they said they had more BitSurfrs lying around than powerbricks ('cause, you know, the powerbricks go bad). (I nodded into the phone.)
I found the obscure corner of Motorola's website where they still mention the BitSurfr... I found a form where I could submit questions to their tech dept. I gave them my financial references and family history and asked my one burning question: "Where can I get replacement power supplies for a BitSurfr Pro?" (I did eventually get an automated response saying that they'd received my query... then a few days later, I got a nice message from what appears to be a human being telling me what companies to contact for future powerbricks. Good to know.)
I did some other phoning that day... I did a LOT of phoning (better do it all now, or I won't be doing any when I get home tonight...). Support technicians at both Telalink and Motorola faxed me setup instructions, with all relevant AT commands. I had little faith, anymore, in anyone's ideas besides my own of what was "relevant." I phoned Motorola because I was concerned that the BitSurfr hadn't recognized my terminal emulation -- did that mean it was possibly defective? Telalink thought that was a possibility. Motorola assured me it wasn't. "The Bitsurfr didn't recognize your Mac as a VT100 because the Mac doesn't do terminal emulation right." Oh. How enlightening. My Mac doesn't do terminal emulation "right" ...just my luck, after 12 years of using Zterm, to finally encounter a device sensitive enough to catch this. Live and learn.
Also at work, I buttonholed Mr. Ludd and informed him of the importance of all those "extra things" they pack the BitSurfr box with. His wife, who is a sweet person with a lot on the ball, found the User Guide. I drove home that evening by way of Fairview again. At home, armed with my faxes and User Guide, I once again cranked up Zterm, this time (eschewing "incorrect" terminal emulation) to send AT commands. The User Guide provided a step-by-step method for configuring the BitSurfr using special AT commands. Here's the magical moment when I discovered that BellSouth, on the doorhanger they'd left me, had not bothered to note the complete SPID numbers... or any of the other information I needed.
SPID stands for Service Profile Identifier. It's basically the phone numbers your ISDN will be using, complete with area code, plus a 4-digit suffix. The suffix was missing.
They'd also neglected to identify other things that the setup called for, like the DNs, or Directory Numbers, and which of these numbers should be identified as "data SPID", "voice SPID", etc. The instructions *appeared* to be saying that I needed not two, but 3 SPIDs (data SPID and 2 voice SPIDs) and two additional numbers (the DNs) that appeared nowhere on BellSouth's doorhanger.
With nothing else to do that evening, I tried every combination of AT command and SPID number I could think of, hoping to happen accidentally upon the correct combination, Myst-style. But it took another phone call, the next day, before I found out that:
BellSouth's full SPID requires 0100 as a suffix. The DN = the phone numbers without the area code and SPID suffix. You pick one of the two SPIDs and designate that as the DATA SPID; you use just the 7-digit phone number part of that (sans area code and suffix) as DN #1. Then you enter the other SPID as Voice SPID number 1 (and corresponding DN). THEN... epiphany... you enter the FIRST SPID, the one you used as the DATA SPID, as Voice SPID (and DN) #2.
Now why couldn't I have figured that out intuitively? Boy, am I dumb or what?
Whatever the case, I now have a good, clean, fast connection to the Internet that costs me $30/month to the phone company (with some other bogus charges added in for effect) + $26/month to Telalink. And it only took me 5 days and 140 miles of driving to set it up.
All to get what I've grown up thinking the phone company agrees to supply in the first place, i.e.: a stable carrier for making data calls. The phone company, bless its shriveled little heart, only guarantees its lines to support up to 300 baud. I now have a corporate entity that I like even less than Microsoft.
I offer the above account in hopes of assisting anyone who is still considering ISDN, in this age of cable modems. The setup doesn't have to be hard, if BellSouth would just supply the information, correctly labeled, up front. And I would advise Motorola, in future User Guides, to put a higher priority on the basic AT commands and let the "intuitive" Windows software take care of itself.
-jmr
POSTSCRIPT:
-
Whups... the story isn't over. Tonight, when I called in to check the
answering machine at home, I received a busy signal, and my wife
complained that the phone sounds bad... echoey; her exact words were: "Fix
it." Now, I know she is not using the phone; and if she were, she would
not be using both lines at once. So there is no legitimate reason why it
would be giving a busy signal.
I've called BellSouth's repair numbers and been referred, serially, to: ISDN Service - 1-800-858-9413 ISDN business office - 557-6123; first, menu option 1, then option 3 and, finally, to the repair office at 669- 2989, where I heard some swing music. I've been told to ask for a BERT test... which I did... and have been promised that they will call me back.
I think I know why the phone company's rates are as high as they are: they must have one humongous phone bill.
I Survived ISDN - The Sequel
So, I've stayed behind at the office, waiting for the service call.
The line people insist that the circuits check out okay, so the trouble must be in the "software" (but they admit they haven't the faintest clue what the word "software" refers to); the software troubleshooting people, meanwhile, try to dial the number and get, not a busy signal, but a message that "...the call cannot be completed as dialed..." ...from which they conclude that there must be a problem with the circuit, and that "...they may be fixing it right now."
I checked my setup, verbally, with the troubleshooting desk, and here's a shocker: Of the three items of information that the installer left with me out of a possible 7 items of information that he *should* have left, the only one that they got right (the switch type)... is *wrong.* The software switch type should *not* be "northern telecom" ...it should be "national". The tech desk guy followed up this revelation with the remark: "Yeah, I don't know why they keep giving out that old switch type...."
And to cap it all off, the BERT test guy made vague allusions to the possibility that if they have to send a dispatch out for someone to come check out my equipment (which I don't like the sound of, personally, anyway), they'll have to charge me for a service call...!
If you need to call my home phone, use the *other* number: 591-0219. If you get a busy signal, that *might* mean they've straightened the problem out and the first number is working again: 591-8750.
-jmr
This (I hope) is the final installment of this saga...
When I got home, I did as the BellSouth tech suggested, and changed my BitSurfr's settings to reflect a switch type of National ISDN 1 (NT-1).
While I was in there, I (just in case), changed the order of the SPIDs I'd given it, designating the OTHER number as my data line, and the 591-8750 one as my Voice 1 line.
Why'd I do this, second-guessing the explicit instructions given me? Because: a) by now I realized that all my helpers, collectively, didn't have a clue (except, I should note, the folks at Telalink, who've never given me wrong advice); and b) I noticed that the second line, the "unpublished" line (591-0219 -- gee, I guess now it's published) worked okay. No busy signal; no "cannot be completed as dialed." The problem is, no one knows that number. All our friends, even the phone books, know only 591-8750 to reach Carol and Rowley. So, if the wrong number was working right, then I just had to put the right number in the wrong places, to make it work out right, right?
I don't know if that's right or not, but it's not wrong.
Now what happens is that the 591-8750 number works as it should for incoming calls, but the 591-0219 number gets a busy signal. So that makes me think that changing the switch type didn't have any effect, but that changing the SPID order DID. Which, as you may recall, was exactly the opposite of what they instructed me to do.
Speaking of Switch Types, here is yet another wrinkle for your brain: Some days after the doorhanger had been delivered, we got a letter (in the mail) from BellSouth (they're probably having trouble setting up their email). Background: there are 3 possible Switch Types. The doorhanger had told us one type; the phone tech told us another; guess what the letter now told us? (Hint: there's only one other type of switch.)
One other thing about the helpful letter; it said:
You are served by the telephone company central office...and the space following was... blank. No SPID numbers. I'm sure this was a blessing, since any numbers they would have put there would probably have been different ones than the ones on the doorhanger, further confusing the issue.
switch type Lucent 5ESS®. SPID/TID Numbers:
I'm equally certain, by now, that there is no "phone company central office." It's just a marketing phrase. Like "new and improved" or "now with extra zazz!"
Do I like ISDN? Yes I do. Was it worth the trouble? Well, yes... but it didn't have to be as much trouble as it was. Even discounting the problems with getting all the BitSurfr parts in place, the phone company made it extraordinarily difficult. Their structure is so fragmented now, none of their agents know what any of the others are doing. I, being a customer, am in a unique position to tell them exactly what is wrong with their system from the CUSTOMER's point of view (the only one that really matters), but they don't even have a mechanism in place by which to receive this kind of feedback. They are completely clueless, and likely to remain so.
I think Motorola shares some culpability, too, in the opaque way they created their manuals. I think they knuckled under to Microsoft's compliance requirements and committed serious overkill in documenting their Windows BitSurfr Setup software... at the expense of the minimal documentation required for the more universal setup procedure using AT commands. The entire setup procedure could be contained on one side of one 3x5 card. Anybody with a Commodore 64 could do it. Probably, a PDA like a PalmPilot could do it. (And I'm certain a Newton could do it.) Hell, a cat rubbing up against a balloon probably generates enough signal to do it. The entire process takes exactly 10 lines of code, and one of them is not needed. In fact, here they are, annotated, in order:
AT>F Sets switches to factory defaults AT!C0=2 Sets Switch Type to National ISDN AT!C1=4 Sets Switch Version (not needed) AT!C6=61559102190100 Data SPID (area code + phone number + 0100) AT!N1=5910219 Data Directory Number (DN) (phone number) AT*1!C6=61559187500100 Voice SPID 1 AT*1!N1=5918750 Voice 1 DN (my "published" number) AT*2!C6=61559102190100 Voice SPID 2 (same as Data SPID) AT*2!N1=5910219 Voice 2 DN (my "unpublished" number) AT>W>Z Writes the above commands into memory
That's all it takes to program the BitSurfr using the AT commands. The characters that appear after the bangs (!) above are the internal switches for the BitSurfr, so other terminal adapters might use different switch designations. Note that all the 0's are zeros, not Ohs. Note, also, that the 0100 suffix is used by BellSouth, but not necessarily by other providers. The phone tech guy was under the impression that I should be using 0101... but told me that the last two digits can be anything up to 64.
There are three components of the above information:
1. Info from the phone company (BellSouth)
2. Info from the equipment manufacturer (Motorola)
3. The info needed to reconcile the differing terminology used by the two above, and fill in the gaps.
It's the third piece that's missing. The responsibility for supplying it rests squarely on the shoulders of the phone company. Without it, no one can buy the service from them. The fact that it's not there is because their structure is so screwed up. And it's within their power to supply.
Earlier, I characterized the person I bought the BitSurfr from as a "Luddite." I meant this in a whimsical way, and I appreciate his cooperation in getting me the pieces I needed, even if a bit late; and I certainly hope this story doesn't hurt his feelings or cause offense. The real Luddite in this whole story is the phone company. If an organization can have an "attitude," BellSouth's could be characterized as a Bronx cheer. "You don't buy all the equipment from us, you're on your own." "If we have to come out there, even just to check it out, because of information we failed to supply you, or information we supplied you that was INCORRECT, then we'll charge you for a service call." (The equivalent of "Don't make me come out there!" I've got news for them; anybody comes out here, I'm taking a hostage.)
BellSouth clearly receives gratification if the setup doesn't work, and seems to be doing everything it can ("subconsciously"?) to sabotage it.
Rather than just whine and blame, I'll give BellSouth a template for getting the correct info to the customer in a way that anybody can understand:
Customer,
In setting up your Terminal Adapter, use this information:
The Switch Type: National ISDN 1 (NT-1) (or whichever one is right)
The Switch Version: National ISDN 1 (NT-1) (probably the default)
Your Data SPID: (Here, the phone company should suggest which of
the two phone numbers to use as data SPID, and
be sure to include the dang suffix)
Your Data DN: (Phone number portion of above SPID)
Voice SPID 1: (This should be the SPID based on the number you
want published)
Voice DN 1: (As above, phone number portion of above SPID)
Voice SPID 2: (Your second phone number, which may or may not
be a "published" one, plus area code and suffix)
Voice DN 2: (As above, phone number portion of above SPID)
Phone number to call for service questions: 1-888-728-ISDN (4736)
=================================================================
I think it's probably not out of line to suggest the inclusion of the entire text of the AT commands, as I gave above, for the most commonly-used terminal adapters (of which, the BitSurfr Pro, though discontinued by Motorola, is one), or at least a place to go get them. Heaven help you if you don't have access to a fax machine. (Can anybody say "website"?)
So, I'll whip out Zterm and change the switch type again... just to see what happens. The upshot of this whole process is that I've spent more time in Zterm than I have since 1987.
-jmr
=================================================================
AND THIS . . . from Jesse Berst's column at zdnet.com:
"ISDN: Introduced in the early 80s, ISDN never really caught on, despite its promise of faster access to the Internet. Blame the phone companies, who never got ISDN right -- rendering it too expensive and too tricky to install. Now momentum is building for other post-ISDN technologies, such as xDSL and cable modems. Good riddance." (click for more)I have to laugh.
...and more on ISDN at zdnet.com.
-jmr
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Also..., Henry Ambrose sent me his comments on ISDN; he's installed it twice now. He said the first time it was a piece of cake, and the second time, the phone company made it frustrating. I asked him if we could add his comments to the rest of the story, and he said sure.
Here are his comments:
====================
Ain't BellSouth wonderful?
I have just about as much luck with them here in Franklin.
If its any comfort when I had ISDN in Nashville it was simple to install, and never gave any problem (except one time as a result of a car wreck damaged line). The installers even new what they were about. My recent experiences are the opposite. And they don't care!! I've talked to several supervisors. I pray I have no more trouble here.
Good Luck, Henry
====================
He also sent me some advice about backing up the configuration, and using
a UPS with the terminal adapter. And a *much* more complicated INIT string
that he uses with his BitSurfr. I'll edit these comments and send them,
too... and I have yet another sequel to the story, about what happens when
you have a power outage and your BitSurfr loses the contents of its
volatile RAM. But I need to check some facts before I write about it. I've
put in a call to Motorola, but haven't heard back from them yet. I may
have to goose them.... -jmr
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
cthomas@home.com writes:
Got this from Henry Ambrose today... -C.
Remember all the fun Michael has had with isdn?
Well the fun has spread to my house now!
I think BellSouth is leading a conspiracy to eliminate isdn or something.
mines out again! the whole time I had it in Nashville I only had one
problem - here in franklin after about 6 months its gone down about 5 or
6 times. maybe time for cable
henry
Ironic, isn't it, then, that after that one complaint I shared with Henry (that I came home the day there had been a power outage to find that the terminal adapter was out of sync... that it hadn't been able to sync back up after the power came back on, and I had to reconfigure using AT commands), and he told me that his always comes back with no trouble...?
I talked to someone at BellSouth about it, asking if there had been trouble with the phone lines. He told me that there was nothing wrong with the lines, but that, of course, if the power goes out, you'll have to reconfig the BitSurfr. He recommended an uninterruptible power supply. (Henry uses one.)
I was just about resigned to another $50 expenditure, but I called Motorola, with the specific question: Is there a way to write the configuration into the BitSurfr's nonvolatile RAM so that the settings will remain even after it's been powered down? They informed me that the setup method given in the Users Guide, using the AT>Z>W at the end, will write to the box's firmware; non-volatile RAM.
Since then, I've confirmed what Henry told me: that you can power down the BitSurfr, and when power is restored, after about 30 seconds to a minute, it will sync up on its own. The settings are, indeed, stored in firmware.
I can only conclude, yet again, that BellSouth is talking out of two different sides of its mouth.
-jmr
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