I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to read about this in our local paper, but Sprint announced their new strategy for integrating voice, data, video over "standard phone lines." They are calling this the Integrated On-Demand Network or ION for short. It sounds an awful lot like ISDN services from perhaps an ESS switch (8 viable bonded channels max) versus the DMS100 (2 bonded channels max). Our local Sprint outlet, to whom I am contracted to administer several pieces of their local dial in access project has just about finished installed the DMS100 switch (yep...we don't have ISDN yet around here). According to the Sprint Internal press release "Sprint today" they intend to completely change their local technologies (scrap the old, in with the new) instead of upgrading their existing network like other carriers. Announced also was the fact that Cisco Systems has been designing/testing/developing the hardware to make this project work, with BellCore doing the software for the project. Rollout to major business is expected to happen in large markets sometime yet this year with residential offerings happening sometime in 1999. Has anyone heard any additional information or have any more insight into this announcement? I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the industry. Kevin Brown Huber & Associates, Inc. Networking Technologies kbrown@primelink.com http://www.primelink.com/haa/lanwan
At 10:46 AM 6/3/98 -0500, kbrown@primelink.com wrote:
Has anyone heard any additional information or have any more insight into this announcement? I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the industry.
An article I read in USAToday this morning over breakfast says it's just ATM to the home. I also just found the same article on the USAToday web site, searching for "Sprint". The article is titled "A closer look at Sprint's new plan." - paul
I believe it's IP/PPP/ATM/DSL to the home, and IP/Tag/ATM/Sonet in the backbone. Are there any expected dates for deployment?
Paul Ferguson writes:
At 10:46 AM 6/3/98 -0500, kbrown@primelink.com wrote:
Has anyone heard any additional information or have any more insight into this announcement? I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the industry.
An article I read in USAToday this morning over breakfast says it's just ATM to the home.
That's what I guessed, too. I'm assuming its being delivered over HDSL or some such. All in all, it didn't sound too thrilling. Perry
The most troubling thing to me about the ION plan is that it seems to revolve around the idea of using LEC local loops to deliver service to home customers. The LECs are not going to be enthusiastic about providing an unbundled loop to facilitate being cut out of their long-distance termination fees. This could be a very slow roll for Sprint. This problem will not become acute until they begin deploying residential service, as many/most business customers (the initial targets) will be "on-net" with CLECS who are already interconnected with Sprint. It might be that Sprint is hoping/praying for regulatory/statutory intercession before they try to penetrate the residential market en masse. I love the telecommunications business... --Tom ==== ==== Tom Walton Director of Strategic Consulting 703-709-7500 Dimension Enterprises, Inc 225 Van Buren, Suite 180 twalton@dimension.net Herndon, Virginia 20170 - USA -----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Paul Ferguson Sent: Wednesday, June 03, 1998 12:14 PM To: kbrown@primelink.com Cc: nanog@merit.edu Subject: Re: Sprint's New ION products At 10:46 AM 6/3/98 -0500, kbrown@primelink.com wrote:
Has anyone heard any additional information or have any
more insight into
this announcement? I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the industry.
An article I read in USAToday this morning over breakfast says it's just ATM to the home. I also just found the same article on the USAToday web site, searching for "Sprint". The article is titled "A closer look at Sprint's new plan." - paul
Date: Wed, 03 Jun 1998 10:46:32 -0500 From: kbrown@primelink.com Subject: Sprint's New ION products To: nanog@merit.edu
I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to read about this in our local paper, but Sprint announced their new strategy for integrating voice, data, video over "standard phone lines." They are calling this the Integrated On-Demand Network or ION for short. It sounds an awful lot like ISDN services from perhaps an ESS switch (8 viable bonded channels max) versus the DMS100 (2 bonded channels max).
Naw. It sounds like XDSL (maybe with a POTS filter). Colocation with LECS (AT&T is proposing this after sueing Qwest for doing the same thing) and using the LEC copper. Voice and data switching in the colo pulling the stuff off the copper pair to the customer. Buy local telephone service from the LEC and do data and LD themselves.
Our local Sprint outlet, to whom I am contracted to administer several pieces of their local dial in access project has just about finished installed the DMS100 switch (yep...we don't have ISDN yet around here). According to the Sprint Internal press release "Sprint today" they intend to completely change their local technologies (scrap the old, in with the new) instead of upgrading their existing network like other carriers.
Announced also was the fact that Cisco Systems has been designing/testing/developing the hardware to make this project work, with BellCore doing the software for the project. Rollout to major business is expected to happen in large markets sometime yet this year with residential offerings happening sometime in 1999.
Has anyone heard any additional information or have any more insight into this announcement? I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the industry.
Kevin Brown Huber & Associates, Inc. Networking Technologies kbrown@primelink.com http://www.primelink.com/haa/lanwan
Dave Nordlund d-nordlund@ukans.edu University of Kansas 785/864-0450 Computing Services FAX 913/864-0485 Lawrence, KS 66045 KANREN
On Wed, 3 Jun 1998 kbrown@primelink.com wrote:
I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to read about this in our local paper, but Sprint announced their new strategy for integrating voice, data, video over "standard phone lines." They are calling this the Integrated On-Demand Network or ION for short. It sounds an awful lot like ISDN services from perhaps an ESS switch (8 viable bonded channels max) versus the DMS100 (2 bonded channels max).
An article at wired.com had a little more detail than the marketing hype that dominated the Sprint press release. The only additional details that emerged were as follows: 1. The Sprint backbone that ION relies on will be the ATM network that they've been working on. 2. For the end user, Sprint is going to be reselling various LECs' ADSL offerings and then charging an extra $200 to install a metering device at the end user's location. It's not apparent as to whether ION for both the business user and the home user will rely on a LEC's ADSL (a scary thought). Following the ION announcement has been singularly frustrating due to the absence of any technical content in their announcements. Jeff ####################################################### # Jefferson Burson Tracor Aerospace, Inc.# # Internetwork Manager 6500 Tracor Lane # # jburson@tracor.com Austin, TX 78724-2000 # # Voice: 512.929.4192 Pager: 512.606.6792 # #######################################################
Our local Sprint outlet, to whom I am contracted to administer several pieces of their local dial in access project has just about finished installed the DMS100 switch (yep...we don't have ISDN yet around here). According to the Sprint Internal press release "Sprint today" they intend to completely change their local technologies (scrap the old, in with the new) instead of upgrading their existing network like other carriers.
Announced also was the fact that Cisco Systems has been designing/testing/developing the hardware to make this project work, with BellCore doing the software for the project. Rollout to major business is expected to happen in large markets sometime yet this year with residential offerings happening sometime in 1999.
Has anyone heard any additional information or have any more insight into this announcement? I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the industry.
Kevin Brown Huber & Associates, Inc. Networking Technologies kbrown@primelink.com http://www.primelink.com/haa/lanwan
Jeff Burson sez:
It's not apparent as to whether ION for both the business user and the home user will rely on a LEC's ADSL (a scary thought).
It appears they will be used CLEC'ed copper with a COLO cage at the CO; IOW, nothing earthshaking, not quick to impliment... -- A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com & no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433 is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433
Jeff Burson wrote:
On Wed, 3 Jun 1998 kbrown@primelink.com wrote:
I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to read about this in our local paper, but Sprint announced their new strategy for integrating voice, data, video over "standard phone lines." They are calling this the Integrated On-Demand Network or ION for short. It sounds an awful lot like ISDN services from perhaps an ESS switch (8 viable bonded channels max) versus the DMS100 (2 bonded channels max).
An article at wired.com had a little more detail than the marketing hype that dominated the Sprint press release.
The only additional details that emerged were as follows:
1. The Sprint backbone that ION relies on will be the ATM network that they've been working on.
ATM to the home. What sort of loop, though? Bandwidth concerns?
2. For the end user, Sprint is going to be reselling various LECs' ADSL offerings and then charging an extra $200 to install a metering device at the end user's location.
The Chicago Tribune says you'll be able to buy it at Radio Shack :-) (Which means it'll be $350, but that's another story in itself).
It's not apparent as to whether ION for both the business user and the home user will rely on a LEC's ADSL (a scary thought).
Doubtful. It says it relies on the ATM network that Sprint's been building. There's supposedly a test rollout by 1999 in the major markets to small business and home-based businesses.. which, as we all know, means they probably havent even begun to think about how to do it. :-)
Following the ION announcement has been singularly frustrating due to the absence of any technical content in their announcements.
"Up to 100 times faster than conventional modems" is said in their press release. Taking a conventional stable modem to be 28.8, that puts the connection at 360 Kbytes/sec, or ~1.8 DS1 (2.88 Mbit). If a 56k were used as reference, that puts the connection at 5.7 Mbit, still DSL speed.. I wonder what kind of site equipment you need to support this, and what limitations will be placed on that. This is leading in the com-priv sort of way, but next issues: Obtaining telephone numbers? Local tarriffs? What defines "long distance"? Can you make a call or fax to some IP address (or equivalent) to another ION user, bypassing transition to the analog (LEC/Telco) network, and have reduced tarriffs? Perhaps this $200 unit is the NT1-equivalent. If so, it's damn cheap. If not, why isnt billing built into the customer-end equipment? I'll stop asking questions before people think Jim Fleming took over my email account. :-p FWIW, there is a dumb playback of the announcement at 888-590-5970.. http://www.sprint.com/sprint/press/releases/9806/9806010583.html It doesnt tell a whole lot (still listening to it), but whatever. If anyone knows how to get an AT&T 8520T to pipe into the line-in on an Ultra, I'll make an MP3.. :-) -- jamie rishaw (dal/efnet:gavroche) American Information Systems, Inc. rdm: "Religion is obsolete." gsr: "By what?" jgr: "Solaris." (1996) Tel:312.425.7140, FAX:312.425.7240
"Up to 100 times faster than conventional modems" is said in their press release. Taking a conventional stable modem to be 28.8, that puts the connection at 360 Kbytes/sec, or ~1.8 DS1 (2.88 Mbit). If a 56k were used as reference, that puts the connection at 5.7 Mbit, still DSL speed..
I've heard VDSL/ADSL. They will have to go over existing copper and the only choices are xDSL technologies. Check out www.adsl.com for more information on what is going on. Ameritech is hoping to have 70% of its customer base covered with ADSL by 2000. I'm sure these decisions are not made without inter-corporate communications.
I wonder what kind of site equipment you need to support this, and what limitations will be placed on that. This is leading in the com-priv sort of way, but next issues: Obtaining telephone numbers? Local tarriffs? What defines "long distance"? Can you make a call or fax to some IP address (or equivalent) to another ION user, bypassing transition to the analog (LEC/Telco) network, and have reduced tarriffs?
That is going to be the problem, there will be no "long distance" and thus no tarriffs and thus FCC/WDC and other regulatory garbage will come and stomp it out. It will be based on bandwidth alone. For more information take a look at Cisco's NetFlow (http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/732/netflow/index.html)
Perhaps this $200 unit is the NT1-equivalent. If so, it's damn cheap. If not, why isnt billing built into the customer-end equipment?
A $200 ADSL modem sounds about right and the billing will most likely be in the router/switch you are connected to, not prem-based. Just some random thoughts, Brad
participants (10)
-
Brad Daugherty -
DAVE NORDLUND -
David Lesher -
jamie＠dilbert.ais.net -
Jeff Burson -
kbrown＠primelink.com -
Paul Ferguson -
Perry E. Metzger -
Scott Brim -
Tom Walton