Network downtime is costly, risks loss of customers, and can bring business operations to a halt. At a fraction of the cost of a separate leased line, ISDN service is available as needed when disaster strikes to reestablish lost communications. A financial services company relies on frame relay service to link its corporate headquarters and branch offices. Transactions must flow smoothly and without interruption in order to keep pace with business and not lose sales to competitors. When the company went looking for the best means to back up its wide area network, it chose ISDN PRI because of its speed and low cost.
Business continues almost without interruption while network service is restored.
And when not used for video, channels can be assigned to other data or voice uses. ISDN provided the ideal solution for improving customer service and cutting costs in a large regional bank's mortgage department. Each of the bank's 100 branch locations had just one dedicated mortgage loan officer. When the loan officer in a branch was not available, customers couldn't be served, even though loan officers in other branches often were idle. Bank managers decided to centralize the loan specialists and place videoconferencing kiosks in each branch.