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

To: bucky89 who wrote (52244)	8/18/1998 2:14:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

Must-read. The Switch Is On At Ascend - SRA purchase puts Ascend in a unique position (another fine article from the VoIP thread) August 17, 1998 Inter@ctive Week via NewsEdge Corporation : As the voice-data convergence market grows, executives at Ascend Communications Corp. continue to make strategic moves to make the company the premier supplier of communications systems to carriers. The networking equipment vendor agreed to purchase Stratus Computer Inc. in a stock transaction worth roughly $822 million. As a result, Ascend (www.ascend.com) will acquire a robust hardware Signaling System 7 (SS7) server platform. Stratus (www.stratus.com) makes carrier-grade SS7 servers, which control telecommunications networks and handle advanced call functions such as call forwarding, and operations support systems software, which enables carriers to record and bill for special services. Ascend plans eventually to incorporate SS7 capabilities into its data networking devices, which will let networks sense when incoming traffic is carrying voice or data and can help route calls to the appropriate network endpoints. The purchase puts Ascend in a unique position compared with its networking cohorts, including Cisco Systems Inc., Lucent Technologies Inc. and Northern Telecom Inc., which don't own comparable fault-tolerant servers such as those made by Stratus. While these companies do own SS7 gateways, they lack robust server-based switches, which intelligently handle telephone calls, according to John Coons, a senior analyst at Dataquest Inc. "It's a strategic move for Ascend to get into that space of actually providing server resources for the public carrier space," Coons said. "There aren't too many vendors that own the whole solution. I've seen partnerships and software acquisitions, but not of the server hardware itself. " Ascend has made other smart moves recently. The company acquired Cascade Communications Corp. in July 1997. The acquisition, which gave Ascend carrier- grade switches, garnered skepticism concerning how the companies would gel. But, according to Ken Fehrnstrom, senior vice president of business development at Ascend, 43 percent of Ascend's revenue -- which totaled $3.3 billion last year -- were generated from Cascade products. "It's an unusual acquisition," Coons said. "It's strategic in that folks are seeing telephony and voice will ultimately go over the Internet. " As data traffic over the phone network grows, carriers want to off-load it to their data network. Data networks based on frame relay and Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocols can handle multimedia traffic efficiently, he said. The telecommunications components are only part of Stratus' business units, which include an enterprise networking division and two software application development divisions. Ascend will sell those three businesses off after the acquisition is finalized. "We don't want to divert our attention from the focus of our core business," Fehrnstrom said. Bruce Sachs, chief executive of Stratus, was formerly CEO of Xylogics, a networking company bought by Bay Networks Inc. He said he understands Ascend's business. "This was the missing piece for Ascend," he said. " They'll be able to take their remote access servers, and frame relay devices and ATM switches and use them to replace traditional Class 4 and 5 switches." Class 4 and 5 switches are traditional telephone switches that handle voice calls. Because of the rise in the number of people accessing the Internet via the phone network, the phone network, which includes these switches, is becoming congested. Frame relay and ATM switches can handle data and voice traffic more efficiently than the voice network, he said. In addition to the SS7 platform, Ascend gets Stratus' customer base, which according to Sachs, includes 27 of world's top 30 service providers. "We have the potential to grow very fast," Fehrnstrom said. Calling The Signals Some key vendors looking to integrate Signaling System 7 (SS7) software into the voice-data convergence efforts are: Ascend Communications Inc. -- Markets the Ascend Signaling Gateway. The addition of Stratus Computer Inc. brings the company a fault-tolerant hardware platform and more advanced SS7 software. Cisco Systems Inc. -- Offers Signaling Controller 2200, which interfaces with the Cisco 5000 and AccessPath access servers. Lucent Technologies Inc. -- Markets the PacketStar Gateway Solution. Lucent's acquisition of MassMedia Communications Inc. brings the company interworking technology for SS7 networks. Northern Telecom Inc. -- Markets the CVX-SS7 Gateway, which provides SS7 capability. The gateway is based on the CVX 1800 remote access switch the company purchased from Aptis Communications Inc. <<Inter@ctive Week -- 08-14-98>> [Copyright 1998, Ziff Wire] Next Previous \| Previous \| Next \| Respond \| View reply to this message View SubjectMarks Bookmark this Subject Discussion \| People \| MetaCrawler Subject Titles Only Full-Text Messages with Links Send questions and feedback to webmistress@techstocks.com Terms of Use Class 4 and 5 switches are traditional telephone switches that handle voice calls. Because of the rise in the number of people accessing the Internet via the phone network, the phone network, which includes these switches, is becoming congested. Frame relay and ATM switches can handle data and voice traffic more efficiently than the voice network, he said. In addition to the SS7 platform, Ascend gets Stratus' customer base, which according to Sachs, includes 27 of world's top 30 service providers. "We have the potential to grow very fast," Fehrnstrom said. Calling The Signals Some key vendors looking to integrate Signaling System 7 (SS7) software into the voice-data convergence efforts are: Ascend Communications Inc. -- Markets the Ascend Signaling Gateway. The addition of Stratus Computer Inc. brings the company a fault-tolerant hardware platform and more advanced SS7 software. Cisco Systems Inc. -- Offers Signaling Controller 2200, which interfaces with the Cisco 5000 and AccessPath access servers. Lucent Technologies Inc. -- Markets the PacketStar Gateway Solution. Lucent's acquisition of MassMedia Communications Inc. brings the company interworking technology for SS7 networks. Northern Telecom Inc. -- Markets the CVX-SS7 Gateway, which provides SS7 capability. The gateway is based on the CVX 1800 remote access switch the company purchased from Aptis Communications Inc. <<Inter@ctive Week -- 08-14-98>> [Copyright 1998, Ziff Wire]

To: bucky89 who wrote (52244)	8/18/1998 2:28:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

Core Switch Makers Ponder An IP Future [Nice ASND references] (yes, via VoIP thread) August 17, 1998 Inter@ctive Week via NewsEdge Corporation : The new service providers that aren't saddled to legacy equipment like to talk about Internet Protocol as the future of networking. But, at least for now, they're making sure to deploy Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology to offer services. That's good news for the companies that make Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) core switches. But even as these manufacturers rack up sales of their ATM products, they are starting to develop long-term plans to incorporate more Internet Protocol (IP) technology into their product lines. Level 3 Communications Inc., Qwest Communications International Inc. and Williams Communications Inc. [all ASND customers] are among the new service providers that have tested and installed ATM switches as part of the core of their fiber-based communications networks. "As a wholesale provider, we need to take into account the needs of carriers that have all types of media in their networks," says Amy Reiber, senior manager at Williams (www.wilcom.com), which uses GX550 ATM switches from Ascend Communications Inc. (www.ascend.com) in its network. "It's important to use ATM because it offers quality of service," she says. "There's also the ease of use it gives customers who are connecting back into our network." In many ways, these new carriers have no choice. ATM is a proven technology that can handle different forms of traffic effectively without delay. Its ability to offer different qualities of service enables providers to make service guarantees and offer differentiated services with differentiated pricing -- something that IP can't do just yet. ATM's advantage on that front won't last forever, however. "It's only a matter of time until IP is perfected," says Niall Gallagher, senior manager at Northern Telecom Inc. (www.nortel.com), a provider of ATM core switches. "As IP networks get faster, the issues of jitter and delay are going away." As the performance gap between IP and ATM shrinks, the debate over which technology to use will become more intense. The big issue is whether investments made now in ATM will look like the smart move five or 10 years from now. "We've reached a funny stage," Gallagher says. "To compete in offering IP services, providers have to build ATM services." The Big Switch The coming together of the ATM and IP worlds has equipment makers scrambling to articulate a long-term strategy. Most manufacturers say they expect the network's core to feature a mix of ATM and IP -- although some aren't ready to say exactly what that mix will be or how it will work. "We're looking at IP very seriously right now, says Joon Miller, director of product planning at Fujitsu Network Communications. "We're looking to develop an IP hybrid product. We're not sure whether we'll be IP- or ATM-centric, but it has to be something in the middle, like an IP router and ATM switch, to address that market." To date, however, Fujitsu (www.fnc.fujitsu.com) has yet to announce an IP strategy for its core products. Ascend continues to preach ATM. "Some vendors would love you to believe that everything is going to be IP," says Tim Krasky, vice president of marketing for the core systems division at Ascend. "Well, SNA [System Network Architecture] and frame relay and voice are not IP. ATM is the best bet for those multiple media types." The key advantages of today's ATM core switches are size and predictability. ATM core switches are big and typically based on distributed processors with high-speed interfaces and direct fiber connections. They're built to carry large volumes of data at incredibly fast speeds. And with voice migrating into the core, the core itself becomes larger. These monster switches do need some intelligence, according to Krasky, such as being able to reroute traffic automatically around a failed route through the network via Switched Virtual Circuits. "There's no market for stupid switches," Krasky says. Some Of This, A Little Of That Several ATM core switch makers say they will develop terabit IP switch routers to accommodate IP traffic in their networks. But those products won't necessarily replace ATM at the network core, says Fred Baker, chairman of the Internet Engineering Task Force (www.ietf.org). "It's a mix of engineering trade-offs," Baker says. "If you need a muxed interface that can talk to everything, then that'll be your choice. If you need a point-to-point relationship between two routers, then packet over SONET [Synchronous Optical Network] is OK. They'll both have a place in the sun." Baker notes that today's terabit products aren't ready for heavy-duty core action. The segmentation and reassembly chips that handle conversion between IP and ATM formats aren't available at OC-48, or 2.4-gigabit-per-second speeds, he explains. "Until we get a chip to handle framing at OC-48, we can't even talk about terabit speeds," he says. One knock against ATM is its high overhead when compared with IP. With ATM, five bytes of every 53-byte cell is reserved for header information. "Service providers say eliminating the cell tax could pay for the line, " Baker says. "There are costs and benefits to each approach." As the performance gap between IP and ATM shrinks, the debate over which technology to use will become more intense Core Curriculum Here's how key Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) core switch makers plan to handle Internet Protocol (IP) Vendor ATM Core Switch IP Plans Ascend Communications Inc. (www.ascend.com) GX550 Will develop terabit IP switch router Cisco Systems Inc. (www.cisco.com) BPX Sells TGX terabit switch router Fore Systems Inc. (www.fore.com) ASX4000 Will develop hybrid ATM/IP core switch Fujitsu Network Comm. (www.fnc.fujitsu.com) FETEX-150 Will develop terabit IP switch router NEC America Inc. (www.nec.com) ATOMNETM20 No IP plans announced Newbridge Networks Corp. (www.newbridge.com) MainStreetXpress 36190 Will develop hybrid ATM/IP core switch Siemens AG (www.siemens.com) MainStreetXpress 36190 Will develop terabit IP switch router <<Inter@ctive Week -- 08-14-98>> [Copyright 1998, Ziff Wire]