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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Glenn D. Rudolph who wrote (24679)	11/25/1997 8:06:00 PM
From: Marcel	Respond to of 61433

DSL delay dogs UUNET By Denise Pappalardo Network World, 11/24/97 Fairfax, Va. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'' -- A Tale of Two Cities If you're looking for national digital subscriber line (DSL) Internet access service, this classic first line may ring true. UUNET Technologies promised coverage in over 90 cities by the end of this year, but this has been much more a dream than a reality. UUNET's Preferred Access 128, an ISDN DSL (IDSL) 128K bit/sec service, today is available only in Boston, the New York metropolitan area and 23 cities in California. Why is it ready only in a handful of areas when UUNET was supposed to be nearing national deployment by year-end? The incumbent local carriers are the ones gumming up the works, claimed Alan Taffel, vice president of marketing and business development at the Fairfax, Va.-based company's current needs or budget. ''Our costs are higher be-cause we've had to deploy ISDN or dedicated T-1s where we would have opted for DSL,'' said Sim Wright, coordinator of in-formation technology at the Spartanburg, S.C. company. ''DSL would provide cost savings and increased bandwidth.'' Users like BMW will be waiting even longer if local exchange carriers (LEC) such as SBC Communications, Inc. continue to make it difficult to offer DSL. SBC recently declared it will not let any of its unbundled local loop lines to be used to support asymmetric DSL (ADSL) services, a company spokesman said. This would apply to any CLEC or ISP. UUNET, however, is offering a different flavor of DSL. UUNET's Preferred Access 128 service is based on Ascend Communications, Inc. IDSL equipment. IDSL creates a dedicated 128K bit/sec connection over copper wiring to UUNET's Internet backbone. SBC will not allow any service providers to offer ADSL services on its local loop in its territories or in Pacific Bell's territories until a ''regular tariff'' is established, the spokesman said. Pacific Bell is a subsidiary of SBC. Today, SBC has filed an ''experimental tariff'' with state public utility commissions, the spokesman said. DSL rollouts must wait for LECs to unbundle their networks and upgrade their switches and facilities where necessary, said Eric Paulak, senior analyst at Gartner Group, Inc., a Stamford, Conn. consulting firm. To the LECs, unbundling their networks is both a ''blessing and a curse,''Paulak said. Competitive LECs (CLEC) are new customers, but they are also competitors, he explained. And only a CLEC can buy unbundled local loop service and set up colocation within an LEC's central office. Meanwhile UUNET is using all of MFS' existing interconnection and colocation arrangements to offer its Preferred Access 128 service. MFS is a CLEC and, like UUNET, a subsidiary of WorldCom, Inc. While UUNET should have had service in the majority of the country by now, the fact is no other national ISP is even attempting national DSL support. UUNET expects Preferred Access to be available in 117 cities by mid-1998.