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Technology Stocks : Qwest Communications (Q) (formerly QWST) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Klein who wrote (507)	12/30/1997 2:13:00 AM
From: Tim Bagwell	Respond to of 6846

John, Thanks for posting your opinions regarding IP vs ATM. As you know the industry has been debating the merits of IP and ATM for years. The issue you bring up on QoS is not new to those working in the field. I personally have not formed an opinion on IP vs ATM but I have to believe that those people making the decisions have made their stand based on a lot more information than has been made available here. For better or worse, there has been recently a move within the industry away from ATM and towards IP. IP seems to be the preferred choice. With regards to QoS one might be able to argue that ATM performance issues require some form of QoS just to be cost effective. In addition, hardware does exist to perform IP routing on a type of QoS basis. I don't know whether QWST is using this hardware or how effective it is but it is in the works. If I can recall the name of the company working on this I'll post it. With this in mind I don't think it's a "done deal" that QoS is a major detractor with IP. I also don't think there are major issues at the management level. I think it bears repeating that the people running QWST would be incompetent if they have not thought about these issues. Since I believe the management team has a fair degree of experience (and competence)I trust that they have made the choice wisely. Only time will tell if they were right but they had to make a timely choice. In the end you may be talking about the difference between a network that operates on a flat-fee based approach with bandwidth shared by all alike to a network that must install a series of complicated "grades" of performance to maximize profit. With all else the same I always prefer the simpler approach. The ATM network managers will be working for years to figure out how to optimize QoS for most profit while QWST just has to turn the crank to get more bandwidth.