Talk:Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: move. Jafeluv (talk) 09:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

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Broadband integrated services digital network → Broadband Integrated Services Digital Network — Name is a proper noun. Dgtsyb (talk) 07:58, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

• Support. Name is clearly proper name. It is the unambiguous name of a specific, standardized technology and not just a general class of methods or protocols. Kbrose (talk) 16:20, 1 January 2010 (UTC)
• Support. Should be capitalized as per naming conventions. Status as proper noun evident from the acronym B-ISDN. Bloodstriker (talk) 19:42, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Why "Broad"?

I am wondering why "Broadband" was the chosen word to pre-pend to ISDN? What was broad about it? As I recall, broadband was used in its traditional technical sense for data networks usually implied something like cable television where frequency-division multiplexing was used. How did it evolve to mean "access to the Internet"? It seems this term might be responsible in some way, since phone companies seemed to confuse the term with "high bit rate" and that is the sense that it has crept into popular English. W Nowicki (talk) 21:05, 14 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, it's a late 20th century language shift. "Bandwidth", far as I know, was applied in the 1980s in progressively vaguer senses, carrying with it the high-tech cachet of its older, more precise technical uses. "Broadband" was frequently heard in the 1990s in politics and news reports as part of the phrase "Broadband Internet access" which was soon abbreviated to "Broadband". Thus we have lost a few old, compact, precise terms but it's only a loss to people in the business since outsiders have less use than ever for the old meanings. Jim.henderson (talk) 16:19, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Glad to hear your recollection agrees with mine. Still not sure how to handle the articles. I think this one is misleading, at least, to say B-ISDN was designed in the 1990s. I see papers from 1987 at least, so will start citing those. I also found one that called it "Wideband ISDN" but so far only one. I think some CCITT report or other might be the definitive reference? W Nowicki (talk) 18:42, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

ITU-T Recommendation I.113, Vocabulary of Terms for Broadband Aspects of ISDN, clause 2.1, definition 101: broadband (wideband), "A service or system requiring transmission channels capable of supporting rates greater than the primary rate." I think you know what primary rate means in terms of ISDN. — Dgtsyb (talk) 21:31, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, I added some of the relevant ITU recs as citations since they are easily available. Interesting that the FCC's definition at broadband.gov is even less ambitious. The other observation is that the B-ISDN standards have the words "aspects of", which is probably a nit. Now the terminology of ATM is also sadly off. The link to Synchronization (computer science) seems not a relevant topic; that is the distributed software meaning of the term! Actually precise terms relevant are probably Isochronous, since voice comes at regular intervals (until it gets highly compressed!) as well as clock Synchronization, perhaps link to Synchronization in telecommunications? The opposite of Isochronous would be something like "bursty" (no article) or just "variable" (but variable bitrate only talks about audio and video). Opposite of Synchronous might best be Asynchronous communication, while it now links to Asynchrony which does mention it as a synonym of Statistical multiplexing, but that redirects to Statistical time division multiplexing, which might be a little relevant, but roundabout. W Nowicki (talk) 21:02, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

In ATM the Asynchronous refers to the transfer mode, not the transport network, which is indeed Synchronous. Isochronous traffic can be carried over Asynchronous Transfer Mode with an adaption layer, directory over the Synchronous digital hierarchy, or over the Pleisiosynchronous digital hierarchy. The difference between the three is more than a matter of clock distribution and synchronization. References to general computing science terms are not particularly useful. Telecommunications is an alphabet soup of its own. — Dgtsyb (talk) 22:18, 19 July 2011 (UTC)

Good point. So it sounds like you agree the current sentence is not very good. Looking at I.150, it only refers to the word "asynchronous" regarding the multiplexing. I.121 also never talks about those as types of services. I will try to reword when I have time. W Nowicki (talk) 21:32, 20 July 2011 (UTC)

Evidently I misinterpreted your comment since you reverted and forced back in the link to Synchronization (computer science)? Do have any source that says B-ISDN has to do with that topic (the software concept of synchronization)? I though B-ISDN was a telecommunications network concept. You took out the link to isochronous. I could not find that word in the standards (it is used for IEEE 1394 and USB audio/video), but it does refer to audio and video, and seems more accurate than the software concept. You also took out the reference to multiplexing, which was taken from, say, second paragraph on page 7, section 2 of ITU-T I.150:

"ATM is used in this Recommendation for addressing a specific packet-oriented transfer mode which uses asynchronous time division multiplexing techniques."

Are you claiming the I.150 standard is incorrect? You also claimed that ATM did not use virtual circuits. Later in that same paragraph it mentions "virtual channel" and "virtual channel connection". Yes, we should make the terminology accurate, but the ATM article itself does say "ATM operates as a channel-based transport layer, using Virtual circuits" and the Virtual Channel Identifier article calls them virtual circuits too (although it seems to say "circuit" where it should be "channel", sigh). I think articles should generally agree with verifiable sources. Interesting I.121 only mentions "virtual path". W Nowicki (talk) 20:36, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I.150 does not say Statistical time division multiplexing, which is something completely different, and, therefore, simply wrong. Isochronous (yes, it is an IEEE term), traffic can be carried over ATM using Constant Bit Rate services and adaptation layers such as AAL2, but ATM is not isochronous, it is synchronous. B-ISDN is not concerned with VCI and VPI, it uses services provided by ATM Adaptation Layers above the bare ATM cell transport. These things are explained properly in the Asynchronous Transfer Mode article, and there is no need to state them incorrectly here. — Dgtsyb (talk) 02:27, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

This seems getting close to ownership where you are just making unfounded assertions. I never said "ATM was isochronous", just that one kind of traffic it was designed for was constant rate audio and video, as mentioned in the sources cited. The B-ISDN sources do, infact, mention both virtual channels and multiplexing. The article on Statistical time division multiplexing does say that ATM-style multiplexing is statistical, not with fixed time slots. That article certainly needs sourcing too, but I do not see the point in helping if you are not willing to collaborate. W Nowicki (talk) 22:40, 22 July 2011 (UTC)