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To: djane who wrote (53134)	8/29/1998 3:13:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

New carrier [WMB] claims more efficient frame service. Promises some savings nwfusion.com By David Rohde Network World Fusion, 08/26/98 Williams Communications has unveiled a new type of frame relay service that's designed to avoid wasted bandwidth for both carrier and user, and to save a little money in the process. Williams, one of several new long-distance carriers launched this year, this week introduced Flex-CIR. Flex-CIR lets users reserve bandwidth levels that vary according to time of day or day of week, even on the same frame relay circuit. The new service revolves around the standard frame relay concept of CIR, or committed information rate. The CIR assigned to a particular permanent virtual circuit is the amount of traffic that is protected against discard in case of network congestion. Most frame relay carriers allow users to choose a fixed CIR for each circuit, such as 16K, 64K or 256K bit/sec. The price of the circuit usually depends on the chosen CIR, even though users have the right to send discard-eligible traffic at higher speeds if conditions warrant. Under Flex-CIR, users can assign one CIR to a circuit for Monday through Friday, and another CIR for the weekend, says Mark Heaton, Williams' frame relay product manager. Alternatively, users can assign one CIR for the business day, another for the early evening hours and a third for overnight. Williams then calculates a prorated average of the price of the CIRs to come up with the monthly charge. For example: Williams charges $40 a month for a 64K bit/sec CIR, $80 for 128K bit/sec, and $636 for 1.024M bit/sec. If a user chooses the high speed for the 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. business day, the intermediate speed for 5 p.m. to 7 p.m., and the low speed for the remaining 14 hours of the day, the prorated charge works out to $242. Williams also adds $30 for each time-of-day or day-of-week speed change. The additional $90 for the three daily speed changes in this example raises the total monthly charge to $332 for the circuit for simplex, or one-way, transmission. To shave that cost a bit, the user could then bump down the CIR for the entire weekend. Like other frame relay carriers, Williams also requires users to purchase a port on its network for each frame relay site. The circuit in this example must terminate on a T-1 frame relay switch port because of the high daytime CIR. That port costs $1,856, slightly lower than the charge by most of the major long-distance carriers. Williams' customer mix enables the carrier to carry out this concept, Heaton says. Instead of selling directly to end-users, Williams acts as a wholesaler signing up other carriers who generally lack nationwide networks of their own - competitive local exchange carriers (CLECs), ISPs and telecom resellers. The CLECs and resellers generally have enterprise customers whose traffic is heaviest during the day, while the ISPs generally have many consumer customers whose traffic is heaviest during the evening. "The reason we're able to offer this is because this allows us to balance the peak traffic patterns of the commercial customers versus the peak traffic patterns of the ISPs," Heaton says. Williams also owns a broadcast video business whose traffic is heaviest after the business day is over, he adds. Williams: (800) 945-5426. Contact Senior Editor David Rohde

To: djane who wrote (53134)	8/29/1998 3:19:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

AOL closes in on modem milestone [AOL to add 25,000 modems/month] zdnet.com ____________________________________________________________ AOL tops 13 million mark news.com By Reuters Special to CNET News.com August 27, 1998, 9:30 a.m. PT DULLES, Virginia--America Online today said its AOL Internet service has surpassed 13 million members worldwide. The company said in a statement peak usage now tops 750,000 simultaneous users, compared to 400,000 one year ago and just 5,000 five years ago. Average quarter-hour viewership has reached 1 million, and AOL members now are recording more than 1 billion Web hits daily. America Online said more than 5 million members have downloaded its new AOL 4.0 software, which became free to members on July 30. The company also said it continues to expand its dial-up network AOLnet, with 800,000 modems available to members in fiscal 1998, up from 447,000. AOL said it has "substantially" exceeded its stated goal of adding 25,000 modems per month. AOL said it plans to continue to add at least 25,000 modems each month in the coming year, and said it expects that the total number of modems available to its members will exceed 1 million within the next year. Story Copyright c 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.

To: djane who wrote (53134)	8/29/1998 3:21:00 AM
From: djane	Respond to of 61433

Study Says 70 Million American Adults Use the Internet nytimes.com August 26, 1998 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS ASHINGTON -- More than one-third of Americans over 16 use the Internet, an increase of more than 18 million people in nine months, according to a new survey released Tuesday of online use. The study by Nielsen Media Research and CommerceNet estimates 70.2 million adult Americans use the Internet, with the largest increases among blacks and American Indians and among young adults and women over 50 in the nine months through June 1998. The study also estimated that 44 million Americans -- almost twice as many men than women -- use the Web to make purchases or compare products. One researcher speculated that new types of products for sale across the Internet are driving electronic commerce, along with falling personal computer prices and technology that's easier to use. "A couple years ago, when you went shopping, the primary things you would find online were computers, hardware and software -- things for the techno-elite," said Loel McPhee, research director at CommerceNet. "Now you can send flowers and all sorts of things." The 70.2 million figure represents 35 percent of Americans over 16; the same study in September 1997 counted 52 million adult Americans online. The study estimated 40.1 million American men and 30.1 million women use the Internet and said percentage growth among men and women overall during the nine-month period was about equal. "Last fall, we thought there might be a slight leveling off," said McPhee. "This isn't the case with the numbers we're seeing now. My guess is we'll continue to grow until we hit the 50 percent mark." McPhee predicted 50 percent of adults in America and Canada will use the Internet by late 1999 or early 2000. Detailed figures from Tuesday's study showed the largest gains in Internet use among some minority groups -- especially blacks and American Indians -- and among young adults and women over 50. The report estimated 5.6 million U.S. blacks use the Internet, an increase of 53 percent from nine months earlier, and 868,000 American Indians online, an increase of 70 percent. It also showed gains of 46 percent among people ages 16-24, and an increase of 50 percent in the number of women over 50 using the Internet. The Nielsen-CommerceNet study was based in part on randomly dialed telephone interviews with 4,042 people in the United States during June 1998. The September study was based in part on telephone interviews with 7,157 Americans. People who had used any part of the Internet -- e-mail, the Web, FTP, telnet, chat rooms or discussion groups -- during the past month were counted as Internet users. A summary of the report is available on the Web at www.commerce.net/research. The full report costs $5,000. Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

To: djane who wrote (53134)	8/29/1998 3:27:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

OT Sad letter from MRVC thread. exchange2000.com Talk : Communications : MRV Communications (MRVC) opinions? \| Previous \| Next \| Respond \| Earnings \| To: Dee Jay (10407 ) From: signist Friday, Aug 28 1998 4:33PM ET Reply # of 10446 A sad day for me...here's what I had to tell my daughter Lorraine LoBianco wrote: What the hell? $6? Hi Lorraine, Yesterday, MRVC announced their earnings will fall short for this quarter 10 to 15% A first for this company for over 30 something quarters or so. The SEC recently has announced that it was alarmed with companies that have acquired other companies, i.e. Lucent technologies Cisco, and on and on, and then the purchaser(s) have been writing off unusual amounts thereby hiding the fact that the company earning's may not have been increasing and this became the accepted (legal) thing to do. Then, people that short stock look for small companies acquiring companies and spread lies and rumor that the SEC is investigating said company specifically. They have been doing this for years but this time they got lucky with recent SEC recent concerns being made known publicly. In my opinion, this prompted MRVC into making this announcement. If the people that short stocks for a living spread outright lies,(in this case they did) they can go to jail but in this particular case by management's silence on this matter tells me they do not intend to prosecute these people as it would attract attention to Management's past accounting procedures and people that resort to this know this would be the case. It is my opinion that MRVC management has used this method of accounting before to hide earning declines and this time, with people who feed off other people's fears and spread rumors of SEC specifically looking at MRVC, which has not been reported anywhere, decided not to continue to use GAAP (generally accepted accounting practices) so yesterday they announced that their earnings have slowed 10 to 15% for this quarter only. I am very sorry I talked you into investing your hard earned money in this company as the Management of MRVC lied to my face when I visited the company last year when I asked them if they planned to support shareholders. In fact, they don't give a damn about their individual shareholders and have not been creating a respected company purely by their hard, honest work. No, I can't sue them personally for this however I wouldn't be surprised if a class action lawsuit would surface soon. This would be bad for everyone as it often taxes small companies assets to fight them and most often just has a snowballing effect to the demise of small companies. This is a sad day for me especially because I involved you in this company. It still has large amounts of cash (duped from new investors recently under the guise of the need to make more acquisitions and ramp up capabilities to produce more products, in my opinion) and if you hold the stock for approximately 6 months to a year you probably will get your money back) We will have to talk about how you might still be able to buy the house you have been looking for as obviously the money you counted on or I made you believe you would have with your investment in MRVC will not be available to you now. You are aware that Your Mom and I have significantly invested in this company and worst we probably will have our margined (borrowed money) called (demanded to be paid immediately. While at this time, this situation will create a hardship on us, we will be ok...I think. This has definately changed my outlook for this company. It may regain it's stock price but will never repair my disappoitment with being involved and invested in this company. Again. I am very saddened and sorry I involved you but you will not lose your money until you sell or if the company files for bankruptcy which, in my opinion, will not happen anytime soon. Love, Dad

To: djane who wrote (53134)	8/29/1998 3:33:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Forrester Expects Market Shifts to Limit Network Industry Convergence guide-p.infoseek.com 08:07 a.m. Aug 25, 1998 Eastern CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 25, 1998--The network equipment industry has witnessed a number of mergers and acquisitions in recent years, leading many to believe that the industry will eventually converge to a few powerful giants. However, this belief is not supported by a close examination of industry trends. A new Report from Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq:FORR), concludes that shifting buying patterns for network equipment and the emergence of new vendor specialists will prevent the industry from shrinking to a handful of giants. "Sales of network equipment will continue to be strong over the next five years, but Internet build-outs and shrinking margins will change the market's dynamics," said Brendan Hannigan, director of Forrester's Network Strategies service and author of the Report "Network Industry Convergence." "Vendors will come to realize that success in every segment of the market is impossible and that they must retool their strategies to address the new market realities." Forrester expects the market for LAN products to flatten out by 2002 as Ethernet and IP standards make it easy for vendors to build fast, reliable switches with class-of-service features that are less expensive than today's offerings. As LAN switch production simplifies, new competitors will flood the market with dirt-cheap products, forcing vendors to compete on increasingly narrow margins. Meanwhile, demand for Internet access gear and routing switches will continue to soar, as 2 million businesses and 30 million consumers move on-line by 2002. Service providers will cap their investments in voice networks as data traffic grows at exponential rates. Vendors that can deliver products with carrier-class scale and reliability will experience healthy growth and fat margins. [Sounds right up ASND's alley.] "To succeed in the years ahead, vendors will need to refocus their efforts by specializing in one of three markets -- carrier, business, or consumer -- based on their product strengths, channel strategies, and customer base," Hannigan added. As the carrier market boom continues, multiyear, multibillion dollar deals will be awarded to vendors that can deliver the products and services that meet carriers' stringent requirements. Business suppliers will need to overcome thin margins by leveraging volume manufacturing, strong distribution, and an Internet commerce presence. Other opportunities exist for vendors that can deliver policy-management software and directory-enabled hardware that is capable of automating network administration. The consumer market, which will reach $1.2 billion by 2002, will go to vendors that will deliver reliable plug-and-play boxes through retail channels and directly over the Internet. Brand presence will be a significant factor in this market. By 2001, Forrester expects the network equipment landscape to be populated by a handful of large generalists that succeed in multiple markets and a number of specialists that deliver best-in-class products to a single target market. Cisco will continue to dominate the carrier and large business markets while 3Com will focus on middle-market firms and the consumer market. Nortel/Bay will remain strong, chipping away at Cisco's carrier market but proving at risk in the business market. The specialists will take advantage of market openings missed by the generalists, like terabit routing switches and multivendor integration services. [How come Forrester always seems to get it wrong?] Forrester Research, Inc., is a leading independent research firm offering products and services that help its clients assess the effects of technology on their businesses. Forrester provides analysis and insight into a broad range of technology areas such as new media, computing, software, networking, telecommunications, and the Internet, and it projects how technology trends will affect businesses, consumers, and society. Forrester's European research center, located in Amsterdam, Netherlands, brings the company's unique perspective to new media developments in Europe. Additional information about Forrester Research can be found on the Web at www.forrester.com. Copyright 1998, Business Wire