More interesting reading. I FTEL is using their AT&T contacts.
The original article can be found at
infoworld.com
May 25, 1998 (Vol. 20, Issue 21)
Can IP answer AT&T's call?
By Laura Kujubu
Faced with threats to its markets from all sides -- including the new breed of carriers such as WorldCom, the
emergence of Internet telephony, and a shake-up of the regulatory landscape following the 1996
Telecommunications Act -- granddaddy of the telecommunications industry AT&T is throwing all of its weight
behind IP technology. But the company's long-term plan to migrate its entire network infrastructure to IP is
winning mixed reviews, and many see it as risky.
AT&T divulged its IP infrastructure plans earlier this month at the opening of its Silicon Valley headquarters for
AT&T Labs, in Menlo Park, Calif. (See "AT&T plans migration to IP," May 18, page 55.) The company
intends, over the long-term, to move its entire network infrastructure -- including its long-distance voice network
-- to an IP platform called the Advanced Network Services Platform that will serve as the simplified basis for
the creation of future services for AT&T.
Generally, analysts had two concerns about the plan: that the quality of voice calls over IP is not high enough to
satisfy users' expectations, and that IP is largely untested in such an environment.
"Putting all on a single infrastructure -- Internet, virtual private networks, voice needs -- that's potential for a
major hit," said Tom Jenkins, an analyst at TeleChoice, in Verona, N.J. "The [voice] quality issue will go away
within the next 12 months, but the question that will remain is reliability."
The reliability issue is seen as particularly significant in the light of the AT&T frame-relay network outage in
April. (See "AT&T disconnects," April 20, page 1.) But analysts differed on whether the risks would have been
increased or decreased, if it had been an IP network that was involved.
"Because IP travels with self-healing routing, they won't be vulnerable to cut off; if packets get blocked on the
way, they'll find another way to the destination," said John Nitzke, an analyst at Forrester Research, in
Cambridge, Mass.
However, others were more cautious.
Brett Azuma, an analyst at Dataquest, in San Jose, Calif., said a broadcast network storm, which caused the
frame-relay outage, is also possible with an IP network. And IP networks can have more points of failure, he
added, because IP networks tend to try to squeeze more capacity into smaller boxes.
Overall, analysts said much will depend on AT&T's implementation.
"Network design has a lot to do with how failure-proof it is," said Hilary Mine, an analyst at Probe Research, in
Cedar Knolls, N.J. "It has to do with how you build redundancy, if there are [Synchronous Optical Network]
rings, if there are dual processors, how you route traffic."
AT&T admits that there is a long way to go before implementation.
"This will take a massive amount of work," said Audrey Curtis, development vice president of AT&T Labs.
"We need to ensure that the underlying backbone has the capacity, the router infrastructure is robust, and that
the gateways allow a multitude of services to flow into the backbone, and that they're also scalable and robust."
"A lot of boxes need to be invented," agreed Frank Dzubeck, president of Communications Network Architect,
in Washington. "And [AT&T] just turned up its first voice gateway in trials, and it takes 28 numbers to dial."
Implementation aside, some analysts suggested that AT&T has little choice but to embrace IP.
"[AT&T] understands the threat of IP networks, and so would rather ride the wave than get crushed by it,"
Azuma said.
Jeff Pulver, president of pulver.com, an Internet telephony research company, added that AT&T is intelligently
betting on the belief in the industry that public networks will be IP-based.
"[AT&T] has identified that IP telephony is definitely the third wave of communication behind the telephone and
cellular," Pulver said. "They're going with technology that will be there in the future -- the biggest revenue
opportunity for the 21st century."
Analysts also pointed out the network efficiencies that AT&T will receive by consolidating to one network: Not
only will there be a single network to manage, but there will be a better use of bandwidth, using voice
compression. By putting voice into packets, Nitzke said, the carrier will receive a 50 percent savings in
bandwidth, because of more efficient bandwidth utilization.
But despite AT&T's good intentions, analysts question whether it's just that -- a good intention.
"The question is, is the timing right?" said TeleChoice's Jenkins. "Gateway devices and servers are new,
unproved, and so for AT&T this move may mean potential high rewards, but also high risk."
AT&T's move to IP is the culmination of various activities by the company in this space. Prior to the opening of
AT&T Labs, the carrier made headway in the voice-over-IP arena with its WorldNet Voice -- now called
AT&T Connect 'N Save Service -- IP telephony offering (see "AT&T's next voice," Feb. 9, page 1), and its
Global Clearinghouse (see "AT&T service acts as broker," April 13, page 10).
Meanwhile, MCI and Sprint are not on the same track as AT&T. An MCI representative noted that although
IP is the wave of the future, the company has no great urgency to turn its network to IP. However, she added
that MCI's Vault Initiative, which bridges the Internet and the switched network, is the direction the company is
taking with IP. (See "MCI lets Net users click for customer service," Feb. 2, page 42.)
Sprint, on the other hand, is committed to ATM, according to a representative.
Ultimately, whoever comes up with the most winning strategy stands to dominate wide-area networking well
into the next century.
AT&T Corp., in Basking Ridge, N.J., is at att.com. Sprint Corp., in Kansas City, Mo., is at
sprint.com. MCI Communications Corp., in Washington, is at mci.com.
Copyright (c) 1998 InfoWorld Media Group Inc.
CAn FTEL handle their Production?
:)
Steve |
