mootman,
>Worldcom does not do stratacom. But they own Cisco products. Where do you get your info?
Here below is the press release I got from Cisco's Web
LDDS WORLDCOM REAFFIRMS CISCO ATM IS NUMBER ONE
Cisco's StrataCom BPX/AXIS Selected for Key Terabit Network Expansion
SAN JOSE, Calif. - December 10, 1996 - Cisco Systems announced today
that LDDS WorldCom, one of the nation's largest telecommunications
firms, has selected Cisco's wide area StrataCom(R) BPX(TM)/AXIS(TM)
Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) systems for a major network expansion
to terabit capacity.
LDDS WorldCom has purchased an additional 18 StrataCom BPX ATM switches
and 11 StrataCom AXIS shelves, bringing to 42 the total number of
StrataCom BPX switches installed in LDDS WorldCom's network, each with
a maximum capacity of 20 Gbit/s. The new ATM backbone will operate at
speeds of up to OC 3, with further expansion to OC 12 planned in 1997.
In addition to offering support for ATM and frame relay nationwide and
in more than 20 countries worldwide, LDDS WorldCom is now able to
support T1 and T3 frame/ATM access in more than 20 cities across the
United States.
Cisco's standards-compliant, carrier-class StrataCom BPX ATM switches -
the industry's first to be fully compliant with the ATM Forum's Traffic
Management Specification 4.0 - have been key in enabling LDDS WorldCom
to rapidly deploy new services to their customers, while continuing to
maximize existing network infrastructures. The carrier has plans to
further extend their service offerings by adding low speed (T1) ATM and
Frame Relay-to-ATM Interworking to their existing portfolio of
multimedia services.
Backbone to the Internet
In addition to the ability to provision new services, a primary reason
for the selection of the StrataCom BPX switches was to enable LDDS
WorldCom to better support their increasing number of Internet Service
Provider (ISP) customers, including Netcom, GridNet, Supercom,
AGIS and ATMnet, who use the LDDS WorldCom network to transport their
Internet traffic throughout the United States. Access to the LDDS
WorldCom network will be via Cisco 2500 and Cisco 7500 routers, Cisco's
AS 5200 universal access servers and a variety of third-party vendors.
With the addition of the new StrataCom BPX's, LDDS WorldCom will have
increased their capacity by a factor of ten over the past 12 months,
and thus will have the ability to handle over one million packets per
second across the US. With 42 StrataCom BPX in place, this will be able
to scale to over 100 million packets per second and will enable LDDS
WorldCom to support the phenomenal Internet growth over the coming
years.
"Given the Internet traffic explosion our top ISP customers are
currently experiencing, we were looking for a solution with
unprecedented scalability, which would enable us to easily and
cost-effectively expand our network in a timely manner as requirements
dictate," said Russ Ray, vice president of engineering at LDDS
WorldCom. "With Stratm( Technology and Tag Switching, the StrataCom
BPX switches can help us scale in addition to providing a high-speed,
high-capacity, multimedia-capable backbone that is well-suited for the
transport of voice and video for our non-ISP customers, too."
Key Deciders: Industry Leadership and Strategic Partnership
With full redundancy and hot-swappable modules, the StrataCom BPX met
LDDS WorldCom's critical reliability and availability requirements. The
ability of Cisco's switches to manage any hardware failures and
software upgrades with minimal cell loss is critical in the industry
and enables LDDS WorldCom to provide a robust and extremely reliable
ATM service. "We liked the way the StrataCom BPX continuously monitors
trunk utilization throughout our network, adjusting bandwidth to all
connections, avoiding queuing delays proactively and virtually
eliminating cell loss," said Robert Bentley, manager of data
engineering at LDDS WorldCom. LDDS WorldCom is offering commercial
available bit rate (ABR) services on all its T1 connections, making it
the first end-to-end ABR network in the country.
"Following the acquisition of StrataCom, we have seen an increase in
activity from our Service Provider customers, all looking to better
deliver and differentiate their services on an end-to-end basis," said
Jon Shantz, vice president of service provider marketing for Cisco.
Cisco acquired StrataCom, a leader in wide area ATM solutions, in July
of 1996. The addition of the StrataCom BPX and StrataCom IGX(TM) to
Cisco's current ATM offerings brings together what now can be
considered the most comprehensive end-to-end ATM solution available
today.
LDDS WorldCom
One of the largest telecommunications companies in the United States,
LDDS WorldCom offers domestic and international voice, data and video
products and services to business customers, other carriers and the
residential market. LDDS WorldCom operates a nationwide digital fiber
optic network and has worldwide network capacity. The common shares of
WorldCom Inc. trade on the Nasdaq Stock Market's National Market under
the symbol WCOM. Company news and product/service information are
available at World Wide Web site wcom.com.
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the leading global supplier of
internetworking solutions for corporate intranets and the global
Internet. Cisco's products - including routers, LAN and WAN switches,
dial-up access servers and network management software - are integrated
by Cisco IOS(TM) software to link geographically dispersed LANs, WANs
and IBM networks. Company news and product/service information are
available at World Wide Web site cisco.com. Cisco is
headquartered in San Jose, Calif. |
