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Technology Stocks : Newbridge Networks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pat mudge who wrote (13511)	10/1/1999 2:51:00 PM
From: zbyslaw owczarczyk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18016

MCI: Nice Start-Now It's Time To Deliver internetwk.com September 27, 1999 MCI WorldCom has taken the first step toward restoring customers' confidence in its data network by airing several options for boosting network reliability and redundancy. Although MCI WorldCom's action plan is welcome news for customers, they must continue to push the carrier for implementation details and time frames. MCI WorldCom has laid out three options: migrating frame relay traffic to an IP backbone to provide cleaner end-to-end connectivity to the many customers increasingly basing their networks on IP; building a shadow network for greater redundancy; and reducing its reliance on equipment from Lucent, which MCI WorldCom blamed for its widespread frame relay outage last month. A hybrid of the first two strategies makes the most sense for customers, and would require the biggest investment by MCI WorldCom. The third option is shortsighted and self-serving. MCI can continue to point its finger at Lucent, but the two other measures it's considering are far more important to IT managers. After all, it's MCI WorldCom, not Lucent, that failed the carrier's customers. If MCI WorldCom has problems with its equipment provider, those should be transparent to customers. Like all equipment providers, Lucent is struggling to integrate and maintain products from other companies it has acquired. Even if MCI WorldCom were to shift more of its infrastructure to Nortel-another of its main suppliers-Nortel could become equally susceptible to the problems that have impacted Lucent, given the mad rush to fill out product portfolios through acquisition. MCI WorldCom has clearly floated a trial balloon to gauge customers' response and to begin the painful process of repairing its image. But the company is to be commended for opening some dialog with its customers. By building a shadow network customers could easily shift traffic to in the event of a network failure, and by moving toward IP, MCI WorldCom would give its customers a compelling reason to stay in the fold. The latter decision assumes that the company would run IP over a protocol such as ATM, which brings robust quality-of-service features. Now it's time for MCI WorldCom to step up, make a quick decision and get on with the business of delivering first-rate, highly reliable service.