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To: Asymmetric who wrote (8692)	6/4/1998 8:45:00 PM
From: Asymmetric	Respond to of 12559

Sprint Followup This writer was unimpressed: Analysts Sour On Sprint Network Plans (06/02/98; 8:24 p.m. ET) By Mo Krochmal, TechWeb Technology analysts are unsure whether Sprint can pull off the ambitious network plans it unveiled in New York Tuesday, and some went so far as to accuse the telecommunications company of promoting services it may not be able to offer. Sprint rolled out its Integrated On-Demand Network strategy, a plan implemented in partnership with Cisco and Bellcore to provide "virtually unlimited bandwidth" over single telephone lines. The strategy lets users sit down at a communications buffet and gobble up buckets of bits using data, voice, and video over existing copper lines. The plan depends on Sprint being able to buy capacity on the local data networks that many of the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) are planning to build. Calling it an "integrated on-demand network," Sprint plans to sell it as one-wire-does-it-all, using one network connection for multiple phone lines, access to the Internet, and advanced data services. The offering will be made to large businesses later this year, general business clients later next year, and residential consumers in late 1999. The announcement was made at a Broadway theater, with a cast of actors acting out scenarios in a multimedia presentation. "This is smoke and mirrors, covering up a bad earnings announcement," said David Goodtree, director of telecom strategies for Forrester Research, a Cambridge, Mass., research company. "They were not creditable. They threw in every networking buzzword in a grand concept of fuzziness. There is nothing there." Goodtree said he could not see what magic bullet Sprint had that other telcos like AT&T, MCI, Bell Atlantic, Quest, and Williams did not. Those companies are critical for Sprint to make its strategy work, said Abhi Chaki, technology analyst for Jupiter Communications, a New York-based research company. Sprint can offer services to large customers via the broadband metropolitan networks, bypassing local carriers, but to reach the broad consumer and small office/ home office market, the telcos are critical. "Sprint will have to negotiate deals with the RBOCs to reach small offices and homes," said Chaki. Chaki said he was impressed with Sprint's technology, letting users dynamically allocate bandwidth. "But great technology doesn't win market share," he said. "AT&T and MCI are not going to roll over and die." The winners in this deal, Chaki said, are Cisco, which suddenly gets credibility in the telecommunications market; Bellcore, which finds an identity; and businesses, which will gain bargaining power as other telecommunications providers jump into the marketplace. Sprint is taking a tremendous risk, said Elliot Becker of San Diego, a senior telecommunications analyst with BusinessTech.com. "They are going to have to execute agreements with the local exchange carriers and then get customers to fork out $200 for a meter so that they can be billed on bits, rather than phone calls," he said. "Getting large numbers of people to go for a new technology, which often looks appealing on paper, is a monumental task in the real world."