Status report on Sprint's CEO Esrey comments concerning cable equal access. see:
http://www.multichannel.com/b1.shtml
"The proposed AT&T [Corp.] acquisition of TCI [Tele-Communications Inc.] would hurt competition unless the combined company is required to offer unbundled access to the cable loop in the same manner that local phone companies must allow access to telephone loops today,"
Esrey said.
"When unbundled cable loops become available, the reshaping of
communications can proceed in a way that truly safeguards and services the customers' interests," he added.
The cable option, little mentioned in the original announcement of Sprint's ION strategy a month-and-a-half ago, was a much more prominent counterpoint to the concerns that Esrey raised about ADSL
in this latest discussion of Sprint's plans.
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The ION strategy calls for the use of new premises-mounted integrated-service hubs equipped to combine voice, data and video signals into the cell format of asynchronous transfer mode, with new
router/switches that combine ATM and IP (Internet-protocol) technology functioning in lieu of traditional circuit switches at the network edge.
All voice traffic, including residential voice, will be converted at the point of origin to IP-over-ATM, said Fred Harris, director of network planning and design for Sprint Technology Services.
This is a clarification of earlier speculation by executives at two of the key suppliers to Sprint's ION -- Bell Communications Research and Cisco Systems Inc. -- that residential voice would be packetized not at the premises, but at IP-voice-gateway servers at central
switching points.
But even if Sprint customers' outgoing calls are packetized at the premises, incoming calls will have to be packetized at the edge of the Sprint network through IP-voice gateways, leaving open the question of how Sprint will achieve toll-quality service in so short a time
frame.
In recent interviews, Bellcore officials and a number of executives affiliated with providers of IP-voice technology have suggested that it would be 18 to 24 months before packet-voice service reaches parity with circuit voice, including feature provisioning, as well as basic
performance quality.
One of this threads commentators has already raised the issue of packetization at the premises( private communication) and another (Scott Moore) has broached the subject of equal access. The threads are where to find anticipatory thinking ahead of managements. Why is that true? For lack of a better word, greed. More proof that Gekko was right.
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