Ascending The Remote Access Ladder -- Kurt Bauer, Ascend Communications, VP of Access Product Marketing
Ascend Communications has been at the heart of the explosive growth in the service provider access field for years. The company's early success came from inverse multiplexing, but its portfolio quickly expanded to include access routers and access concentrators like its MAX and MAX TNT lines, which are widely used in the ISP community. Today's IT managers are looking for services like voice over IP and virtual private networking; they're also demanding guarantees on these services. As a result, Ascend, like its hungry competitors, is trying to expand its reach into the converged voice/data networks. InternetWeek editor-at-large Salvatore Salamone recently got a chance to talk about the changing market with Kurt Bauer, Ascend's vice president of access product marketing. Here are the highlights of that discussion.
InternetWeek: How is the access market changing today?
Bauer: The service providers want everything-voice, fax, DSL, frame relay-in as few boxes as possible.
InternetWeek: What specifically are they looking for?
Bauer: The service providers want to know how products fit into context with the new public network that includes the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and the Internet. And they want to know how a solution helps with service features like quality of service.
InternetWeek: Are service providers just looking for gateways to link between the two networks?
Bauer: All of our customers are saying, "Infrastructure is important, but I need solutions."
InternetWeek: So this goes well beyond simply providing access products?
Bauer: Yes. We used to have point announcements-I call them vertical silos. Now we are trying to pull these things together.
InternetWeek: We're obviously seeing a convergence
between the Internet and PSTN. How does this change things?
Bauer: With the new public network, the brains are integrated within the body of the network. So we need SS7 and intelligent [call handling] to provide call control.
InternetWeek: Was this the incentive behind Ascend's acquisition of Stratus?
Bauer: Yes, it's part of it. But the Stratus products are not the big news. We already had OEM agreements. It's the people with PSTN experience that are key. About 450 people will come from Stratus.
InternetWeek: What type of applications are coming out of the integration of the PSTN/Internet networks?
Bauer: We have providers like Deutsche Telekom doing PC-to-phone trials. Voice providers can use the Internet to start doing some cost avoidance. And fax over the Internet also is a big application.
InternetWeek: How important is intelligent call handling in all of these applications?
Bauer: The quality of the services will be key to people using them. Grandma isn't going to care about any of this; she just wants dial tone.
InternetWeek: Let's talk about convergence of another kind. It seems IT managers want providers to mix what have previously been separate offerings like high-speed access and VPNs. Are you seeing that, too?
Bauer: Yes. We recently had a provider, BCS in South Africa, that combined VPN and DSL.
InternetWeek: Any interest in other high-speed access technologies?
Bauer: We also have worked with some providers that wanted to combine VPNs and cable modem services.
InternetWeek: How is all of this different from the approach taken by other access equipment vendors?
Bauer: Many vendors have combined access and backbones. They have put in switches and tried to deliver QoS features. We're offering multiservice delivery on a single infrastructure. We're combining solutions with core switching technology and management.
InternetWeek: It seems like ISPs and IT managers need help deploying some of these new services. Is that an issue for Ascend?
Bauer: Yes. Integration services are becoming very important. We will be making some announcements next month about global integration service offerings.
InternetWeek: We've talked about Ascend offering solutions. Can you provide an example?
Bauer: One example is network wholesaling, where a large provider supplies the access ports for clients of a smaller service provider.
InternetWeek: How does Ascend fit into this picture?
Bauer: It's our combination of access equipment, security ser-vices and management features that lets a provider make available and [get revenue for] ports wholesaled out to another provider.
InternetWeek: Is there anything else on Ascend's horizon that we should be looking at on the remote access front?
Bauer: Cable is on our radar. We already have routers in cable networks.
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