Sprint Unveils Revolutionary Network
PR Newswire - June 02, 1998 08:30
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Breakthroughs Give Customers High-Speed, High-Bandwidth, Multi-Function Capabilities Over Single Phone Line
NEW YORK, June 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Sprint (NYSE: FON) announced today a revolutionary new telecommunications capability that can provide homes and businesses with virtually unlimited bandwidth over a single existing telephone line for simultaneous voice, video calls and data services.
"This truly is the Big Bang that expands the universe of what telecommunications can do in our homes and businesses," said William T. Esrey, Sprint's chairman and chief executive officer.
The new capability, developed under the code name Project FastBreak, is not a single technology but a combination of numerous technological advances. "As a result, we are introducing tomorrow's network today -- the Integrated On-Demand Network (ION)," said Esrey.
A household or business will be able to conduct multiple phone calls, receive faxes, run new advanced applications and use the Internet at speeds up to 100 times faster than today's conventional modems -- all simultaneously through a single connection. The need for multiple phone lines will be eliminated, and applications such as high-speed online interactive services, video calls and telecommuting will be readily accessible and less costly. Use of the Internet will be so fast that typical pages on the World Wide Web will pop up almost instantaneously.
At home, consumers no longer will be required to buy additional telephone lines to make multiple voice calls and be online at the same time. Businesses will no longer be required to manage numerous complex networks but can rely on a truly integrated network that consolidates voice, video and data traffic while reducing costs. Sprint's ION allows businesses to expand dramatically their local and wide area networks and dynamically allocate bandwidth, thus paying only for what they use rather than having to purchase a set high- bandwidth capacity that often sits idle. ION will also set a new industry benchmark for service reliability, utilizing Sprint's pervasive deployment of SONET rings across the United States.
Today's announcement is the result of five years of confidential work. "We saw where the trends were pointing and quietly began designing the network of the future. We've invested more than $2 billion in building the network that will handle the advances we're announcing today, and numerous worldwide Sprint patents have either been granted or are pending," Esrey said.
Sprint has been privately testing the revolutionary Integrated On-Demand Network capability with both businesses and consumers for the past year. An initial roll out to large businesses will begin later this year. The service will be generally available to businesses in mid-1999, with consumer availability late in 1999.
Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network also creates a new cost standard for the telecommunications industry. By utilizing cell-based network technology, the network cost to deliver a typical voice call will drop by more than 70 percent.
For example, Sprint's costs to provide a full-motion video call or conference between family, friends or business associates will be less than to
provide a typical domestic long distance phone call today. "We have moved beyond the outdated cost structure of the last 100 years," Esrey said. "We will be offering every Sprint customer their own multi-billion dollar, unlimited bandwidth network in the same monthly price range that many customers spend today for communications services."
"We're past thinking about 'nailed-up' links that are permanent costs to customers. Sprint's network is ready all the time to provide capability and capacity whenever and however the customer wants it," said Esrey.
Sprint's investment in ION provides the fabric for truly redefining local phone services. "Not only have we created the network of the future, but this same network will serve as the basis for our competitive local phone strategy," said Esrey.
Sprint's long distance network is already built and covers the entire United States. Its reach will be extended through metropolitan broadband networks (BMAN) available in 36 major markets nationwide in 1998 and in a total of 60 major markets in 1999. These BMAN networks will allow Sprint ION to pass within proximity of 70 percent of large businesses without having to utilize Digital Subscriber Line (DSL). For smaller business locations, telecommuters, small/home office users and consumers who may not have access to BMANs, ION supports a myriad of the emerging broadband access services, such as DSL.
"We are opening new vistas for the ways in which people communicate. If you are a Sprint customer, you will be online, all the time. You will not have to access this network of breathtaking power and speed; you will be part of it," said Esrey.
Unmatched capabilities
Sprint is able to deliver this revolutionary new capability because its network supports a seamless, integrated service to the desktop over an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) backbone network. This network fabric provides the speed, flexible bandwidth, scalability, service consistency, security and telephone voice quality that neither the Internet nor non-ATM-based networks can deliver.
"Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network gives us capabilities our competitors don't possess," said Ronald T. LeMay, Sprint's president and chief operating officer. "Because of the limitations of their network architectures, the traditional telecommunications providers are mostly consolidating and bundling different services, not integrating them. They are building separate data networks that are not integrated with their legacy voice networks. As a result, many competitors will be forced to rationalize disparate networks or risk being disadvantaged in cost and capability."
In addition, Sprint's ION leap-frogs the bandwidth-only capabilities of DSL and cable modems. ION provides customers with robust voice, video and data services, along with the capability to customize multiple services, all combined with access to unlimited bandwidth, available on demand, all the time, whether they are across town or across the country.
The new entrants have other problems, according to LeMay. "They are spending billions of dollars to create fiber routes and to build IP (internet protocol) networks that only offer best-effort voice transmission, but they cannot match the service quality that Sprint provides. Sprint's ION will integrate existing customers' networks and greatly simplify network management for Sprint's customers, which the emerging carriers' IP networks will not be able to accomplish."
Unlike Sprint's ION, the emerging carriers networks cannot allow customers to "grab" bandwidth as needed. While the emerging carriers claim to be deploying networks to selected U.S. cities, Sprint's high-speed integrated network is deployed across the country and within most major cities through metropolitan broadband network rings.
"We have also established distribution channels such as RadioShack and established customer relationships and the power of the Sprint brand, one of the most widely recognized in the United States. Sprint's total, integrated set of services -- which includes long distance, local and the only nationwide digital PCS offering -- provides Sprint with a better capacity/cost position, challenging the claims of the emerging and legacy carriers," said LeMay.
Cisco, Bellcore and RadioShack
Central to the deployment of Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network (ION) will be three partners -- Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Bellcore and RadioShack.
Cisco will provide technology at the heart and edge of ION, including customer premise equipment. Through the exchange of intellectual property, Cisco will provide the capability of voice over ATM for ION and the ability to connect to other carriers' legacy circuit-switched networks. In addition, Sprint will be an early implementer of the Directory Enabled Networks (DEN) standard. Networks with DEN capability place information about users and their services on ION to deliver better performance, reliability, security and quality for a variety of networked applications.
"Cisco is proud to be working with Sprint to deliver the benefits of data, voice and video integration to customers," said John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems. "By collaborating with Sprint and Bellcore, we will develop and bring to market the first ION applications and services and lead the way in making multimedia communication an everyday part of doing business."
Bellcore is providing the central software framework that is the core intelligence of ION, in addition to the telephone features commonly in use today. Through its proven expertise, Bellcore will also develop software and provide consulting services to ensure the same reliability for ION that Bellcore helped create for the circuit-switched voice network.
"Bellcore is pleased to partner with Sprint and Cisco to make Sprint's vision of a truly integrated on-demand network a reality. The implications of this new network for businesses and consumers are profound," said Richard C. Smith, CEO of Bellcore.
"Cisco and Bellcore are the perfect technology partners in this venture," Esrey said. "In Cisco we have the clear market leader in data networking and application enabling, while in Bellcore we have the acknowledged expert in providing the industry's most advanced capabilities of reliability and scalability."
Another key partner for Sprint is RadioShack, a company already selling a full portfolio of Sprint products and services. With 6,900 locations nationwide, RadioShack has a store within a five-minute drive of 94 percent of the U.S. population. One million people visit a RadioShack store every day.
"Sprint's alliance with RadioShack provides consumers with the ability to go to one place near their work or home to have all their communications questions answered, purchase their products and services, and have those products and services integrated through one communication services provider," said Esrey.
"This alliance also offers distribution capabilities that no other telecom company can come close to. As Sprint revolutionizes communications with ION, the 25,000 RadioShack sales employees will help redefine the way small businesses and consumers purchase their products and services," added Esrey.
"We expect to play a key role in getting America 'connected' at the grassroots level for the next century," said Leonard H. Roberts, president of RadioShack and CEO-elect of Tandy Corporation. "We are positioned to enhance our reputation of being America's 'Telephone Store,' to being America's 'Telecommunications Store'."
Customers already on board
Several major corporations have already committed to utilizing Sprint's Integrated On-Demand network services in the months to come. Coastal States Management, Ernst & Young LLP, Hallmark, Silicon Graphics, Sysco Foods and Tandy will be initial customers.
For these businesses, and others like them, ION offers a significantly more productive and efficient communications solution than today's model. High speed, integrated communications will be available to corporate locations, branch offices, small businesses and the small office/home office worker. The result is an enhanced virtual private network that enables applications such as collaborative product development, supply-chain management, distance learning and telecommuting.
"Businesses will be able to both provide communications internally and
develop a totally new way to think about integrating suppliers, partners and clients into a truly integrated multimedia network," said LeMay.
For small businesses, Sprint's next-generation network is the great equalizer -- delivering the same communications power that is available to large businesses.
The great equalizer concept also extends big-company capability to the small offices of large corporations, to telecommuters, to small office/home office and to individual entrepreneurs. "Whether you are an executive working in your home office or a budding entrepreneur with your only office at home, the capabilities of Sprint's network are there for you online all the time," LeMay said. "A Sprint customer will have the same computer access and video-conferencing capabilities, in terms of speed, quality and reliability, that are available in the office. This has profound implications in making telecommuting truly viable."
Innovation and leadership
More than a decade ago, Sprint ushered in the era of pin-drop quality and reliability when it introduced the first nationwide, all-digital fiber optic network. Sprint was first to market with a variety of products and services, including the first public data network, the first national public frame relay service and the first nationwide ATM service offering. Additionally, Sprint deployed the first coast-to-coast SONET ring route and was the first carrier committed to deploying Dense Wave Division Multiplexing on nearly 100 percent of its fiber miles. SONET allows voice, video and data services of any bandwidth size to be transmitted to its destination with guaranteed delivery. Metropolitan Broadband Networks extend that powerful service and delivery guarantee in major markets. This same innovation and execution prowess is the foundation for ION.
Another technological advancement developed over the past four years as part of ION is the ability to carry pin-drop quality voice traffic over an ATM network and to seamlessly connect to any public switched network. This capability will be transparent to customers using the Sprint network.
Network capacity is not an issue. Through deployment of Dense Wave Division Multiplexing and other fiber-optic technologies, Sprint can efficiently and quickly scale network capacity, as the marketplace demands, while simultaneously improving unit economics. In 1998, a single Sprint fiber pair will be able to simultaneously carry over 2 million calls --- the equivalent of the combined peak time voice traffic of Sprint, AT&T and MCI. Next year, that same fiber pair will be able to simultaneously carry four times the combined voice traffic of Sprint, AT&T and MCI. "In the Year 2000, one pair of Sprint fiber will have the capacity to handle 34 million simultaneous calls, or 17 times today's combined volumes of Sprint, AT&T and MCI, without having to physically construct any new fiber," Esrey said.
Sprint also is a founding member of the "Universal" ADSL Working Group, aimed at accelerating the adoption and availability of high-speed digital access for the mass market. The goal of the "Universal" ADSL Working Group is to propose a simplified version of ADSL that will deliver to consumers high- speed modem communications over existing phone lines, based on an open, interoperable International Telecommunication Union (ITU) standard. Other participants in this working group include Microsoft, Intel, Compaq, Cisco and other technology and communications companies. "Quick adoption and deployment will lead to availability of ION capabilities to a larger portion of businesses and residences," said Esrey.
"Sprint led the way over a decade ago with crystal-clear quality and the construction of our nationwide fiber network. Since that time we have led the industry in numerous 'first to market capabilities' across the emerging and high-growth data market. Today, with its innovative ION applications, Sprint establishes its place as the pre-eminent provider of total services to our customers," Esrey concluded.
SOURCE Sprint
/CONTACT: Sydney Shaw, 212-841-6610 on Tuesday June 2 only, or
202-828-7428 after June 2, or sydney.shaw@mail.sprint.com, or Russ Robinson, |
