Is your download time unbearable? Your computer modem complications insufferable? Integrated Switch Digital Network (ISDN) technology has been a virtual panacea for most Web heads and Internet enthusiasts east of the Mississippi.

In states such as Arkansas and Tennessee the technology, which pushes download time to blistering speeds, is readily available from phone companies at unlimited use rates below $30 per month.

Here in Utah, however, not even the Public Service Commission (PSC), which routinely audits state utility and telecommunication companies, can bring ISDN prices down to a reasonable level. Even worse, US West believes the PSC’s recent ruling regarding ISDN prices is too low to cover costs and has already filed an appeal for higher rates. These recent moves affect not just computer nerds, but could have widespread repercussions for education and even traffic congestion.

Utahns rich enough to dance to US West’s tune currently pay $184 per month for unlimited ISDN usage. So after long hearings over many months, relief was highly anticipated as the PSC prepared to rule on new rates. But the $64-per-month rate, announced early in January, rendered any jubilations premature.

"I was not surprised. I didn’t expect the PSC to do anything terribly progressive," said Pete Ashdown, president and owner of Xmission, an Internet service provider company. "I still thought the rate was quite high and out of reach for the average consumer."

So did most Internet service providers, who judged the new price as a feeble compromise between computer users and US West. Surely the phone giant’s corporate rank and file would be uncorking champagne over such a moderately high price, they thought. Instead, the phone company swiftly appealed for even higher rates. And that doesn’t bode well for such highly touted plans as Gov. Mike Leavitt’s virtual university and "telecommuting," which would allow more people to work at home via computer rather than beat a path to work on Salt Lake City’s congested roads and highways.

ISDN would allow workers to set up home offices more easily, Ashdown explains, because it offers a switchboard-like feature that lets phone, fax and computer operate in harmony.

As for that university degree you may someday earn in the comfort of your own home, imagine waiting 10, 15 or even 20 minutes for a professor’s speech to download onto your computer screen. "Most people have to spend way too much time at the computer to get even a little information. Anything faster is important," said Charlie Paddock, retired professor of information systems at Arizona State, University of Nevada Las Vegas and owner of the Internet cafe Mocha Modem.

If ISDN rates where lower, Ashdown points out, the information age would become an even greater force in everyday life, and US West might even achieve greater market penetration. But even before the PSC’s January ruling, the phone company argued that its expansive geographic spread over Western states required ISDN rates much higher than other phone companies in the East and South could offer.

So while the digital age runs into more cost hindrances, Internet service providers and their customers lament, but also look for other ways to speed up the transmission of information. Paddock sees a bright future for satellite technology, a set-up much faster than mere phone lines, although Ashdown is skeptical of that route.

"Thanks to these kinds of delays the Internet may always remain a curiosity instead of a useful tool," Ashdown said.