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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bindusagar Reddy who wrote (51879)	8/10/1998 11:33:00 PM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 61433

Bind, Hey, thanks for the article. Just a couple of points if I may... ' "IP equipment still lacks a lot of the features and functions of circuit switches, such as the ability to put a call on hold, or do call forwarding, credit card calling or 800 numbers," Not so. Look around... I can say no more. An emerging class of high-speed IP switches can read the beginning and end of packets at line speeds, a capability that will go a long way toward enabling QoS in IP environments. I guess more of a question...maybe a bit rhetorical. What does speed of an IP switch have to do with it's ability to discern packet types? I mean, yes, certainly processor speed is fundamental but what does this have to do with trunk speed? The article continues... he NX64000 routing switch can forward 6.4 terabits per second and will support up to 64 OC-48 (2.4G bit/sec) connections or 16 OC-192 (9.6G bit/sec) links. Like I said..... trunk speeds is not and indicator of a products ability to deliver QoS. At this point I lost all respect for the writer. I went on nonetheless.. How many people haven't rebooted their desktops this year?" asks John Hart, chief technology officer at 3Com in Santa Clara, Calif. "It doesn't help to get the network to 99.999% reliability if the desktops are less reliable." Uh....huh? What do desktops (vis-a-vis Windows platforms) have to do with IP telephony to network devices? OK.. I'll give on the fact that there will eventually be a market for Windows CE devices that support voice however this "consumer" market is years away....we're not focusing on the consumer market today - we're targeting the business market. We have to use ATM to do QoS right now, but in the long run ATM will probably disappear." OUCH!... Bucky89..you out there? We had this discussion a few months back didn't we. Looks like this guy disagrees with both of us! Maybe so, but one thing is clear: The IP convergence train has left the station. Some of the passengers are wildly enthusiastic about the journey, and others are being dragged along kicking and screaming as they enumerate IP's many flaws. But whatever its shortcomings, IP is a done deal - it's the standard that got adopted, period. It has so much momentum and development action there is nothing else on the horizon. OUCH again. If this guy is right then ASND is walking into the lions den. This is clearly CSCO territory. OK...I know... here come the arrows, but let's face it. ASND is the current king of core ATM/FR networks whereas CSCO is the king of IP (read routers and routing switches). I see this as bad news for ATM and therefore bad news for ASND. But then, these articles are never right... SERIOUSLY.. most of the time these things are worthless. I read one a last week that said CONVERGENCE was a pipe dream. Yeah...right. For ATM at the core is where it's at. IP still has to prove itself and the carriers need to be convinced...and even stiffer challenge. Well...at this point I could not continue any further.... Bind, nice article but I don't think it reflects good news for ASND and beyond that the fundamental foundation of the aritcle is terribly flawed. In other words a real "piece of work". Gary (OG)