ISDN multimedia desk top teleconferencing

Describes an internal AT&T trial application utilizing unique capabilities of ISDN. The following application design criteria was chosen for this trial; it must: consist of an end user application which would be both easy to use and to understand; contain as much common office communications equipment as possible; and incorporate ISDN capabilities which would increase the usefulness of the application over that provided by current telecommunications capabilities. The trial equipment included a prototype multimedia desk top workstation which provides for the simultaneous transmission of voice, data and still frame, bit mapped images. The networking capabilities of these workstations are supported by a terminal interface which can interwork with the ISDN protocol and is supported on both private line PBX networks, and on public switched networks. The following three components that comprise a desk top multimedia teleconference in the ISDN environment are described: the workstation equipment; the ISDN teleconferencing application software that runs on the workstations; and the ISDN switched network, consisting of both virtual private line and physical private line network services, that interconnect these workstations