MCI WorldCom frame relay backup favors Lucent platform
By David Rohde
Network World Fusion, 11/19/99
MCI WorldCom yesterday
launched several new frame relay
back-up initiatives, in the process
appearing to reassert its faith in its own key
vendor, Lucent.
The carrier announced it would construct a
network-to-network interface between its two
principal frame relay networks - one provided by
Lucent and the other by Nortel Networks. It will
then offer customers of either platform the
opportunity to use the other as a backup.
Although customers will have to pay separately
for the back-up network, it will be available for
30% below regular frame relay prices.
MCI WorldCom also announced it is beginning
construction on a parallel Lucent network using
the vendor's ATM-based CBX 550 switches and
its Jade-2 software load. Jade-2 is a variation of
Jade-1, also called J-1, the software load that
triggered the failure of the Lucent network for up
to 10 days in August. When complete in the first
half of 2000, the new Lucent platform will be
integrated with the existing one, giving the overall
network greater scalability to accommodate
growth.
Analysts took MCI WorldCom's moves as quiet
benediction to continue with the Lucent network
and as a signal that it was not Lucent's code itself
that was at fault in the August incident but rather
integration issues. "The problems were not in
J-1," flatly stated Frank Dzubeck, president of
Communications Network Architects, a
Washington, D.C., consulting firm. MCI
WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers had appeared
to blame Lucent shortly after the August outage
but company officials have been backing away
from that statement ever since.
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