Hello, my name is Dave Barker, owner of xyz. I would like to share with you how xyz has worked to bring the best dial-up Internet service to our home here on the south peninsula. It is my hope that by understanding how xyz has answered the technological challenges presented in the following paragraphs, you might recognize two things. One, xyz has invested in the finest dial-in access equipment on the market today with our sights on tomorrow, and two, our phone system needs improvement.

First, a quick overview of what an ISP (Internet Service Provider) needs to do so that you can connect to the Internet. Starting at your computer, you then have a modem, which allows your computer to talk to another computer through normal phone lines. You have a phone line which runs from your computer, to the phone company's central switch. It is here that all the phone lines in the area come together to be routed based on what phone number is dialed. Because an ISP must accommodate many phone calls at the same time, they buy many phone lines from the central switch to their facilities. Each of those phone lines has a modem on it to talk with your modem. All of the modems are then plugged into a communications server, which consolidates all of the modem traffic so that it may be passed onto the Net.

So, to allow customers dial-in access, xyz needs two things, a communications server, and modems. Initially, for a communications server, we bought a Portmaster-2ER-30. This is the same communications server used by over a thousand ISPs nation wide, and our competitors here as well. We bought our modems from communications leader Motorola.

How can things be better, that's what I'm always wondering. Today, it seems the answer is always the same... go digital. In the standard ISP setup described above, the data path went from your digital computer, into an analog modem that talks on analog phone lines, which is then converted to digital through the phone company central switch, back to analog on the phone lines to the ISP's analog modems, then digital to the communications server. Every time there is a digital to analog conversion and back, errors can be introduced in the form of noise, which reduce the maximum speed that the modems can talk. Less analog, less noise, more speed.

I searched, but at the time there was no all digital solution available on the market. Around the end of November I found a new product built to go all digital. We got one of the first released on limited basis for beta testing. The PM3, connects directly to the phone company central switch digitally, and maintains the digital signal through True Digital Modems, to be powered soon by telecommunications systems developers, Lucent Technology's chipsets. This setup allows a completely digital path from the net, through xyz, all the way to the phone company central switch, and only then must be converted to analog for carry over your phone line to your modem. This increased digital path not only creates the cleanest possible connection between you and xyz, it is a must for the new 56k modem technologies appearing on the market today. This is something we wanted to be ready to provide. Looking further down the road, the PM3 will also allow us to offer ISDN when available in our area.

So why can't you now enjoy the benefits of these investments xyz has made in its communications hardware? Because the phone company can no longer support the digital circuits providing the path between xyz and their switch. Technically, they can do it, and this is what I had based my purchase decisions on. The problem they tell me, is that their switch is already heavily loaded doing normal phone switching, and they feel our circuits would put unacceptable strain on the phone system. They've said they do recognize the need for an upgrade to their switch, but they cannot tell me when this might happen. I've let them know how necessary these upgrades are to quality Internet connectivity in our area. Maybe you could let your voice be heard as well.

Thanks to our healthy customer base, we can afford the very best. We are now ready to deploy a unique all digital, 56k ready, dial-in service for the people of the south peninsula. The only thing holding us back is the phone system, and that is beyond our control.