Critics Question Carriers, Unified
Services
(02/11/00, 5:25 p.m. ET) By Chuck Moozakis, InternetWeek
The race to network convergence isn't
picking up much speed.
Nineteen months after unveiling its Integrated
On-Demand Network (ION), Sprint still has fewer than
30 customers for the converged network service, which
dynamically allocates bandwidth to transmit voice, data,
and video over a single pipe. AT&T, which kicked off
its Integrated Network Connection Service (INCS) late
last year, said it has only a "handful" of customers. MCI
WorldCom's On-Net is more of a marketing package
than an integrated service, critics maintain.
What's the holdup? Most companies still don't see a
compelling need to uproot their current network
services and infrastructure for a converged service.
"I can't bet my services on a technology that's still
immature," said Dwight Gibbs, chief technologist at
financial website The Motley Fool. "If my data network
goes down now, I can still use my voice network. And
if my voice goes down, I can use my data. But if they
both go down, I'm really screwed."
"We have low-cost traffic already," said Rick Pancratz,
IT manager at Hilton Grand Vacations. "It would be
difficult to see how we could justify the switch."
Still, the benefits are tangible. Customers can shave as
much as 25 percent off their telecom costs by merging
facilities for voice and data. In addition, by unifying their
voice and data backbones, carriers can trim their own
network operations and provisioning costs, and
theoretically pass some of those savings on to
customers.
Those are exactly the operational efficiencies early
customers said they're seeking from integrated services.
Sprint disclosed five new customers of its
large-business ION offering, which carries data and
voice at T1 speeds.
One of those customers, systems integrator Complete
Business Solutions Inc. (CBSI), is tapping ION to
replace separate voice and data infrastructures from
Sprint and MCI WorldCom. CBSI will first link its
headquarters to six branches. Following a three-month
evaluation, scheduled to end in June, the company said
it plans to extend ION to all 40 of its domestic offices
by year's end.
"We depend so much on having additional bandwidth
available," said Goutham Surapaneni, chief of
technology operations at CBSI. "We will need even
more bandwidth, and today it can take anywhere from
30 to 45 days to get circuits provisioned. ION will
open up the bandwidth we need."
While Surapaneni said ION's technology underpinnings
are sound, he's less sanguine about the administrative
impact as voice and data functions are lashed together.
The problem is cultural: He's concerned about possible
turf wars as CBSI's data department takes a wider role
in overseeing both voice and data traffic.
"To the end user, these technologies are very
transparent," he said. "But to technology folks, it is a
new and complex product. We have to understand how
this can be rolled out and overcome the initial inhibitions
of having data and voice rolled into a single network."
But ION's potential outweighs any possible infighting,
Surapaneni said. He projects ION will cut 25 percent
off CBSI's multimillion-dollar telecom budget by
eliminating costs associated with administering separate
networks, while giving the company additional
bandwidth on demand.
Food distributor Sysco is expanding its use of ION
because it needs more bandwidth, said Larry Hardin,
director of operations and communications for
information services. Sysco, one of ION's original
seven beta testers, recently moved production traffic
onto an ION link between headquarters and two
branch offices.
"Our need for information is exploding, and ION seems
to be a perfect way to deliver it at a good cost," Hardin
said.
Sysco has used ION to deliver frame and voice traffic
and will add video and DSL support later this year.
Eventually, Sysco will deploy ION to Sysco's 78
offices, "as it makes sense to do so," Hardin said.
Yet for every Sysco and CBSI, tens of thousands of
enterprises are still wary of how convergence will affect
their infrastructure and operations. Many are waiting for
standards that will let voice and data flow on native IP
infrastructures instead of the ATM-anchored
superhighways used by ION and AT&T's INCS.
For customers that need sub-T1 connectivity,
converged network services are still too expensive,
"and ATM is too foreboding for many," said Liza
Henderson, an analyst at TeleChoice. "The carriers say
ATM is transparent, but the complexity of dealing with
ATM still scares some people."
Sprint and AT&T said they will make that shift once
they're comfortable that IP can handle the load. They
also said they plan to support fractional T1 speeds and
enable their services to work with cable and wireless
systems.
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