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Technology Stocks : PMC-Sierra (PMCS) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JZGalt who wrote (1989)	8/3/1998 3:06:00 PM
From: tech101	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3818

A Better Internet Awaits Us LANTIMES, Aug. 3, 1998 By Alan S. Kay ..... The other infrastructure modification that will support business SLAs (service-level agreements) is a shift to ATM, which provides a homogeneous environment within which data streams can be prioritized. For example, Qwest, which has championed IP as the vehicle for business connectivity, announced in April that it was buying ATM switches and network-management tools from Ascend Communications Inc. According to an April 21 press release, Quest claims this new network, managed by Ascend's Navis end-to-end network and service-management products, will provide Qwest the ability to offer data services with SLAs to their corporate customers. Providers seeking to differentiate themselves in the marketplace have begun to offer such SLAs for their IP packet-based networks. In April, GTE Internetworking announced it will credit its customers for one day of service whenever they cannot reach a site within 10 minutes "because of a failure in GTE Internetworking's backbone," or sustain more than a 10 percent packet loss on the backbone over that same period. GTE also will deploy Ascend ATM, frame relay switches, and network-management software in building out its Global Network Infrastructure, which is planned to elevate throughput to OC-48 (2.5Gbps). "Quality of service is a front-page issue with us," says Ken Baldwin, assistant vice president for product marketing at GTE Internetworking in Irving, Texas. "We intend to offer customers SLAs with metrics." Such commitments to service guarantees, however limited, represent the first halting steps toward an Internet that business can rely on. Alan S. Kay covers business and consumer technology from San Francisco. lantimes.com