Communications: Telephone nets go digital: Digital communication links promise flexible, economical telephone services for both home and office

Digital communication links promise flexible, economical telephone services for both home and office. As integrated-services digital networks (ISDNs) are implemented during the 1980s and 1990s, any telephone user will be able, for a fee, to access such digital services as facsimile transmission, teleconferencing, and eventually even video conferencing. The bandwidths available to residential users will begin to increase in the next few years from the present few kilobits per second to 80 to 144 kb/s. Businesses will have access to digital communications that are much more flexible and economical than those available today. Already some limited steps towards ISDNs have been taken, and a number of digital services will be available in the next few years. Ultimately the new network will encompass most telecommunications, supplanting current analog networks.