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Technology Stocks : Voice-on-the-net (VON), VoIP, Internet (IP) Telephony -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Frank A. Coluccio who wrote (808)	6/21/1998 12:19:00 AM
From: Ray Jensen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 3178

Frank, I don't think Sprint has a large number of viable alternatives to the LECs in the cities listed in its 1998 ION deployment in Atlanta, KC, Chicago, Houston, & Dallas. Many Cable TV companies have a generous amount of fiber capacity, but very little is deployed in a SONET ring topology in the core big business areas. In addition, most cable headends are do not have the power systems redundancy of LEC central offices, along with all the other central office features that would make Sprint feel warm and comfy for rolling out their flagship service for the next millenium. I have not seen a Cable headend that would adapt to well to physical collocation by another carrier for equipment that is needed within a few months. In contrast, LECs are required by law to offer collocation at a fairly reasonable rate...(of course, all the equipment must be NEBS compliant! <g>). As far as local access fiber companies, the biggies like Brooks and MFS belong to Worldcom, and TCG belongs to AT&T. Who else can Sprint turn to who has a lot of fiber capacity throughout all of those metro areas that can be used to set up SONET rings to priority customers in very short order (this fall)? I think its a fairly short list. When Sprint looks at NYC, the list gets a bit longer. Why Frank, you could give them a ring and make some suggestions, hmm? In Denver, Sprint might be able to find a couple of alternatives to U S WEST that does not already belong to one of the other IXCs. My hunch is that SBC (incl. Ameritech), Bellsouth, and GTE were handed the ION local access deal on a tariffed platter by Sprint, and the LECs didn't have to chase the plate too much. Sprint is buying tariffed, regulated SONET ring service from the LECS just like they already do in many places, so the deal is pretty cut and dry. If Sprint had more time on their hands for the initial ION rollout, the players might have been different. I think the ION rollout means so much to Sprint that they can't afford to blow it with the wrong partners who cause them to lose time and delay the rollout. Sprint is in the shadow of Worldcom/MCI/Brooks/MFS and AT&T/TCG. At the same time Sprint is trying to keep up with the giants, the next-gen telcos are coming along like marbles on the sidewalk. Ray.