US carriers were vying for the limelight at InterOp Fall this year, but it was Sprint Corp, Kansas City, Missouri that took most of the attention with the announcement of the immediate availability of a pan-US Asynchronous Transfer Mode service. The launch comes just a couple of weeks after MFS Datanet Inc’s announcement of a service, but Sprint’s coverage is much greater: while Datanet’s new service covers 14 cities, Sprint says it has 300 points of presence spanning the entire US. The new Sprint service runs at 45Mbps, but this will be increased to 4.8Gbps as transmission equipment is added to the Sprint network. As part of its strategy, Sprint says it will also provide users of its X25, Internet Protocol and Frame Relay services with access to the Asynchronous Transfer network, while customer network management capabilities based on SNMP are to be added next year. The main exchange for the service is the Switch 2010 from TRW Inc, while Fore Systems Inc is supplying local network-to-Asynchronous Transfer switches.
Tariffs
The data service units are being supplied by Digital Link Inc. In the future, equipment from Sprint’s joint venture with Alcatel NV – Alcatel Data Networks – will also be used for the service. Sprint hopes to differentiate its Asynchronous Transfer service through very flexible tariff options: while it has not released precise figures, it says that users can mix and match usage-based and flat fee charges, according to the nature of the traffic from each individual location. The company is not, however, placing all its eggs in the Asynchronous Transfer basket: alongside its announcement, it was also pushing its Frame Relay service. According to Greg Crosby, Sprint’s director of data product management, Asynchronous Transfer Mode won’t replace Frame Relay for several reasons. In the short term, he says, with any new technology, users are a bit sceptical, and Asynchronous Transfer is no exception to this, and he adds that some users will not need the faster speeds offered by Asynchronous Transfer and will stick with Frame Relay. However, Crosby adds a note of caution by commenting that the only thing which might displace Frame Relay, is if carriers start offering T1 speed services, rather than the faster T3 which are being initially announced. As for Sprint, it is presently holding judgement on whether to offer just such a slower service. Crosby sees Asynchronous Transfer’s future as bright, however, saying that two years down the road the population as a whole will embrace it. Hughes Aircraft Co has already been announced as Sprint’s first Asynchronous Transfer customer, and Crosby says that other people he has spoken to are very excited about the mix of tariffs.
