Pat,
NEW YORK - AT&T is expected to launch within a month a major high-speed
communications service that will let many of its 10 million business customers cut costs by
combining their phone and computer networks.
Code-named AT&T INC - for Integrated Network Connect - it won't actually be available
to customers until 1999, people close to the project tell USA TODAY.
Sprint unveiled a similar service, called ION, three months ago. And newer carriers such
as Qwest, Level 3 and IXC also plan to carry voice and data on a single network. AT&T
spokeswoman Kate Rankin declined to comment on the launch, saying: "We are still
testing the service. We are not ready to go into any level of detail."
But the rollout of the network would be a major step in CEO C. Michael Armstrong's
overhaul of AT&T, and a bellwether of industry change. Armstrong is racing to reengineer
the USA's largest carrier as the focus of telecommunications shifts from voice to
transmitting video, voice and data.
Armstrong already has gained the industry's attention from high-profile deals to buy
Teleport Communications Group and Tele-Communications Inc., and to partner with
British Telecom.
The overhaul of AT&T's network is just as important. AT&T will deploy an Internet-like
digital technology known as ATM, for asynchronous transfer mode. It converts
information into the ones and zeros of computer language, breaks it into tiny pieces,
stamps them with an address and sends them into a shared transmission line.
The technology also is at the heart of Sprint's $2 billion ION service. ATM and IP are
more efficient than traditional phone lines, which reserve a separate circuit for every call,
and the quality is improving.
The new service will offer AT&T and its customers two major benefits, analyst Ken
McGee of The Gartner Group market research firm says:
Lower prices. AT&T's bids for corporate contracts are 5% to 12% higher than
those of MCI and Sprint, McGee says. AT&T could start to close the gap in a year
or two.
More flexibility. ATM allows customers to instantly order phone lines, high-speed
data lines or features with the click of a computer mouse.
It also will let AT&T expand its consulting businesses, giving it the ability to monitor
customer networks with sophisticated ATM devices it installs on their premises. That sort
of entrepreneurial effort is critical for AT&T, which must expand beyond long-distance to
up revenue and stock value.
By Steve Rosenbush, USA TODAY
and we alll know which managment platform will be used by AT&T (see NN's press releases, may 1998)
Regareds
Zbyslaw |
