Infonet Offers Y2K Back Up Via Satellite
By Sheridan Nye
09 July 1999
Infonet Services Corp is offering multinational companies a
satellite back-up facility in case Y2K bugs cause their
terrestrial networks to fail.
Infonet, of El Segundo, California, said it will target new and
existing customers for its VSAT Connect Y2K Contingency
Service Plan, which provides a fall-back local loop connection
for mission critical applications.
The Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) satellite service is
aimed predominantly at multinationals with offices or
manufacturing plants in countries where Y2K glitches are more
likely to cause problems, said Erica Angus, product market
manager, Infonet.
South American and African countries where infrastructure
investment is low will be particularly vulnerable when the
clock ticks from 1999 to 2000, according to Gartner Group
consultancy of Stamford, Connecticut. By Gartner's reckoning,
Asian territories such as South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan
may have fewer problems, but it will be harder to predict where
those problems might occur.
Infonet says its own global core network is not the issue but
the final connection to the customer provided through local
carriers. The customer-sited VSAT uplink will bypass the local
terrestrial loop, passing IP and Frame Relay traffic on to the
global satellite network provided by Hughes Global Services
and Hughes' satellite operating arm, PanAmSat.
Corporates will pay start-up costs and a monthly flat fee for
the dedicated VSAT link for a minimum 12 months. Infonet
guarantees to pay this money back if the satellite link or
customer premises hardware fails and isn't fixed within 12
hours. Angus acknowledges that ISDN might be a cheaper
back-up solution for companies in regions where the dial-up
alternative is available.
The Y2K option is the first of three VSAT-based services
Infonet will roll out in the coming months. VSAT Connect will
be a straight replacement option for companies wanting to
switch to satellite from their terrestrial loop. For instance, a
central office could become a hub for VSAT links to multiple
remote offices, or the remote sites could link to an Infonet
interconnection point. VSAT Connect Back Up service will
allow multiple sites to share satellite link capacity in the event
that one or more of the sites loses its terrestrial connection.
All the VSAT services will carry IP and frame traffic, as well as
ATM when Infonet launches this service in 2000.
Customers will need to be aware of the limitations of
satellite-delivered connections, said Angus. Feeds to
geostationary satellites will experience an inherent link delay
and, in the event of a terrestrial failure, switchover to the
VSAT service would take some 3-8 seconds - time for Cisco
router to redirect traffic and then to activate the satellite link.
© EMAP Media 1999
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