Group to Launch Effort to Move Data Off Phone Lines
Telecom: Bellcore is leading a coalition to develop standards that will allow online services to be routed to their own networks.
By KAREN KAPLAN, Times Staff Writer, 4/29/98
latimes.com
A coalition of telecommunications firms led by Bellcore will launch an
initiative today to move data traffic off the public voice telephone
network, which has become overwhelmed by the exploding popularity of the
Internet and computer online services.
Bellcore, the former research arm of the Baby Bell local phone
companies, will spearhead a group that will create technical standards for
equipment that can distinguish between data and voice calls. Then, data
calls--whether they be e-mail messages or Web surfing sessions--can be
routed on to separate networks designed to handle data more efficiently.
Internet transmissions and other data calls have been an expensive
problem for phone companies, and the Federal Communications
Commission estimates that they spent more than half a billion dollars last
year to add capacity to their networks. By 2005, data calls could make up
90% of all calls on the phone network, according to the U.S. Telephone
Assn., which represents local phone companies.
In California, Internet connections already account for more than
one-quarter of all calls from residential phone customers, according to
Pacific Bell.
"The industry needs a solution to deal with the problem, because it's
continuing to explode at an exponential rate," said Jack Zatz, senior director
of network performance solutions for Bellcore in Morristown, N.J.
The voice network is set up to maintain an open line between two callers
for the duration of a phone call. But a data transmission doesn't need to
monopolize a phone line--it only needs an open line when it sends packets of
data in bursts. To make matters worse, the typical data call lasts at least 20
minutes, but the average voice call is finished in about three minutes,
according to Bellcore.
The Baby Bells and other carriers have been talking about building
separate data networks to meet the demand, and a handful of companies are
selling equipment to help them do that. But without a single standard,
progress has been slow.
Bellcore wants to write informal but de facto standards for a device
called an Internet call routing node, which can interface()
between the voice phone network and the newfangled data networks being
built by companies such as Qwest Communications International(
) and Level 3 Communications. Once a data call arrives on the
switched telephone network, the node would intercept it and re-route it on
to a data network, said Amir Atai, director and chief scientist in Bellcore's
network performance and traffic area.
Building that infrastructure won't be cheap, but it will be much more
affordable than the alternative, Atai said.
"The phone companies have to order more lines and equipment to make
sure the quality of service for voice users is not degraded," he said. "It forces
them to invest more capital and money into this network that is not really
designed for this. We want to try to shift that new investment into a more
efficient packet network."
If the phone companies are successful in moving data calls to a separate
network, the quality of both voice and data calls will improve, said Don
Heath, president and chief executive of the Internet Society, a Reston,
Va.-based group that represents users of the global computer network.
"It's got to be a win-win," he said.
About a dozen telecommunications equipment makers--including Bay
Networks() and Applied Innovation(
)--will join the standard-setting initiative, and several of the major
telephone carriers have expressed interest as well, Zatz said.
Phone service and equipment companies say Bellcore is well-positioned
to elicit a standard from many companies, and that doing so will improve
service for both voice and data calls.
"Almost every local telephone company would be interested in doing
this," said Ells Edwards, a spokesman for Bell Atlantic's network group,
which spent more than $100 million last year on data-related network
upgrades.
For starters, a standard would remove much of the uncertainty that has
kept many phone companies and equipment makers on the sidelines. With a
standard in place, manufacturers could boost production, which in turn
would lead to faster implementation by phone carriers and lower prices for
consumers, said Mary McDermott, vice president for legal and regulatory
affairs for the U.S. Telephone Assn. in Washington.
Bellcore, now a unit of San Diego-based Science Applications
International Corp., has been studying this problem for more than two years,
and Zatz expects the industry coalition to decide on the standards by the end
of the year.
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