Chapter 5: Better Access To Better Data

The typical database of the '90s contains a growing array of still and moving images - from high-resolution photographs and graphics, to full-color video segments, sound samplings and even complete orchestral sequences.

And in the face of this emerging data, modems and analog transmissions have faltered badly. For while it is technically possible to send and receive images, graphics, video, sound and other digitized files at modem speeds, few users have the time or patience to make it practical. Conventional bandwidths and modems not only constrict the amount of information that can be accessed, but limit the range and availability of database information itself.

Enter ISDN

With its digital speed and throughput, ISDN has already begun to increase the power and reach of today's databases. Because it is now economical to search through even the largest files of complex, digitally stored images - from diagrams and drawings on a specialized database, to the worldwide warehouse of facts and images on the Internet.

ISDN offers digital access without the need for costly dedicated lines, yet at speeds that outstrip modems by factors of almost ten-to-one without compression, and as much as fifty, sixty or seventy-to-one with today's still-emerging compression algorithms.

To a student chatting on Compuserve, this increase in speed may be all but unnoticeable. After all, one can only type so fast.

Yet to an engineer or physicist searching for specialized images on a remote database, it might mean hours or even days saved - or may, in fact, be the difference in conducting the search at all.