9/7/98 InfoWorld (Pg. Unavail. Online)
1998 WL 17234389
InfoWorld
Copyright (c) InfoWorld 1998
Monday, September 7, 1998
Vol. 20, Issue 36
NETWORKING & TELECOM
Ascend targets providers selling wholesale access
Stephen Lawson
Ascend last week pitched to service providers a type of offering that
could lead to more options and lower costs for enterprises.
The company said its access devices and backbone switches have been
enhanced with remote authentication and management software that would
allow service providers to sell capacity wholesale to smaller ISPs. This
model allows specialized providers to offer services geared toward
enterprises in a particular region or business, using the infrastructure
of a large general-purpose carrier.
Hillary Mine, an analyst at Probe Research, in Roseville, Calif.,
estimated that the market for wholesale access will grow to $1.5 billion
in carrier revenue by 2002.
According to an Ascend official, buying in capacity wholesale lets
smaller ISPs increase their coverage without high infrastructure costs.
A spokesman for Ascend said the company's remote authentication
technology is critical to offering wholesale VPN services. It lets
large service providers tunnel user authentication requests to the
smaller ISP's servers.
The spokesman also touted Ascend's management software, which is
designed to let enterprise customers monitor the performance of leased
services port by port. Software for policy-based quality of service is
in the works, he added.
One analyst said the announcement was a wise move by Ascend.
"Other vendors could probably say the same thing, but Ascend is
putting a stake in the ground," said Liza Henderson, an analyst at
TeleChoice, in Verona, N.J.
Ascend Communications Inc., in Alameda, Calif., can be reached at
ascend.com.
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