ABSTRACT

In 1996, I managed a provisioning project for a telephone service provider. The business driver was to push Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) circuits out into the residential and small business marketplace in anticipation of increased demand for reliable, high-performance Internet access. At the time, public interest in the Internet was practically nonexistent but expected to blossom, as it certainly did. Besides, the ISDN technology permitted two channels, so that the subscriber could simultaneously make a phone call and surf the Internet or use a fax machine on the same line. Our project scope was to develop a software system that would “automate” the ISDN provisioning process from end to end as illustrated in Exhibit 1.