MFS, Prt II
''It's going to be a wonderful free-for-all,'' said Frank
Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architects, Inc.,
a Washington, D.C. consultancy.
It is uncertain what Level 3 will charge customers, but ''the
pricing differential will be so astronomic that the established
carriers will have to react,'' Dzubeck said. ''These guys are
really going to have an impact.''
Dzubeck said it costs an IP service provider a mil _ one
one-thousandth of a cent _ to offer a minute of long-distance
voice service. The cost for a traditional phone company is more
like 2 cents.
MFS II?
Under the Level 3 model, customers will buy not dial tone, but
Web-tone access to an IP network. The backbone of that
network will be all fiber, guaranteeing ample bandwidth to bear
scores of gigabits per second of user traffic.
Traffic among destinations on the Level 3 network could be
assured QoSesbecause Level 3 would have control of the entire
network being used. Traffic traveling to other carriers' networks
for destinations off the Level 3 network might or might not
support those QoSes, he said. For some destinations, traffic
might use the public Internet, where today no service quality can
be guaranteed.
Business-quality voice will probably not be ready until 1999, he
said.
A service based on the most inexpensive backbone can still be
costly, said Bill Homa, communications director for Hannaford
Bros. and Co., a supermarket chain based in Scarborough,
Maine, which is looking at ATM to anchor its network.
''The key is who controls the local loop. If you have multiple
locations, it's going to be expensive if you have to use the local
loop for access,'' Homa said.
Level 3 will pay those access fees except where Level 3 can run
fiber directly to the customer, Crowe said. But he would not say
what impact access fees would have on pricing, which is still
being worked out. |
