A Frame Relay interface now available on Campbell, California-based StrataCom Inc’s IPX FastPacket and BPX broadband Asynchronous Transfer Mode switches is claimed to provide a dramatic drop in the cost of provision of Frame Relay networks. It also increases by up to seven times the number of low-speed Frame Relay users that the switches support. Where StrataCom’s current Frame Relay interface supports up to four users, each of the new interfaces will support up to 31 Frame Relay users at speeds from 56Kbps to 1,984Kbps. An IPX can accommodate up to 30 interfaces. The interface means that at smaller sites, StrataCom’s recently announced IPX 8 networking switch can become an inexpensive, high-density Frame Relay switch that will serve up to 150 low-speed Frame Relay users for a cost as low as $500 per 64Kbps port, including all switch costs. This user capacity would previously have entailed installing a top-of-the-range IPX 32 switch – with a commensurate increase in price per port. External equipment costs are also reduced, since the new interface also includes integrated Data Service Unit functionality. Carriers are expected to be the first users of the interface since it will significantly reduce the cost of building a new Frame Relay network or of extending an existing Frame Relay network. Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Williams Cos’ WilTel fibre optic carrier, which runs its WilPAK Frame Relay service on a network of IPX switches, is finding that users are increasingly requiring low speed Frame Relay connections into the service as they upgrade their low-speed point-to-point and multidrop lines.
