ISDN AND B-ISDN - FROM BASIC TECHNOLOGY TO APPLICATIONS

After about 25 years of development, ISDN as a concept for a universal digital network service has already come of age, and its younger partner, Broadband ISDN (B-ISDN), is the subject of many advanced research and development Projects and intensive standardizing activities. Surprisingly, however, there is a mismatch between R&D in basic networking technologies on the one hand and studies concerning applications. Starting with a critical overview of present ISDN and B-ISDN concepts in relation to traditional approaches for Computer Communication, this contribution will identify some promising new applications, and in particular, it will describe some recent research in workstation based multimedia communication.