From Buffalo to Montauk, from Augusta to New York City, people are beginning to work together, exchange ideas and share information in new and exciting ways:

At an advertising agency in Boston, a graphic designer uses the telephone to send full-color production materials for a supermarket ad to newspapers throughout the Northeast.



In a Manhattan recording studio, Barbra Streisand records a duet with Frank Sinatra. Sinatra sings in a Hollywood studio more than 3,000 miles away.



At one of New England's largest hospitals, a doctor treats a woman at a nursing home miles away. Through a single video connection, he sees and talks to his patient, checks laboratory tests, and reviews her medical history.



In New York, executives at an international cosmetics company hold live video meetings with counterparts in Belgium, France and Italy. They exchange documents, photographs, package designs, advertising layouts and more.

These scenes and hundreds like them are happening today throughout the Northeast and throughout the nation. And all share a single phenomenon: a telephone technology known worldwide as Integrated Services Digital Network - or ISDN.

Subsections Of This Chapter:

New Capabilities; New Applications
ISDN: What Is It?
ISDN Fundamentals
Basic Rate Interface
Primary Rate Interface
Growing Availability