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Changing the tune of telecom

8/10/98

By Marty Kaplan

In early June, Sprint announced Sprint Integrated On-Demand Network (ION), a packet-switched ATM network with virtually unlimited bandwidth to provide integrated voice, video and data over one phone line. Sprint ION is a combination of many technical advances, some proprietary technology and a way to put all the right parts together. As one might expect, the announcement was met with a range of praise and skepticism.

Sprint engineers who began designing ION a few years ago can relate to the proverb, "To lead a symphony, you must occasionally turn your back on the crowd." They, like the Sprint engineers before them who saw a need for the first all-digital, fiber-optic network, now know what it's like to forge into new territory on the optical frontier.

Analysts expect that 90% of the nation's traffic will be data within five years. Sprint realizes that you can't send all that data the old way. In fact, Sprint hasn't purchased any circuit switches for its long-distance network for the past few years. Instead, Sprint has moved quickly to unveil the first seven major markets where large businesses will have access to ION later this year through Broadband Metropolitan Area Networks (BMAN). These cities are New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, Denver and Kansas City.

Similarly, Sprint is in discussions with several regional Bell operating companies about extending xDSL to the home. Sprint is confident that the RBOCs will want to join us in bringing a broadband path to residential users. If not, many data competitive local exchange carriers (CLEC) and fixed wireless alternatives can help us reach that goal.

Sprint ION is the result of five years of confidential work. Sprint has chosen ATM, which fully supports IP, so it can offer public-switched telephone voice quality without losing the advantages offered by IP-based applications. IP is critical to Sprint's future, but protocol doesn't matter with Sprint ION. You can use IP or ATM. Sprint ION takes all networks - frame relay, IP, voice and data - and reduces them to one single platform.

So what did Sprint engineers see in Sprint ION that caused them to recommend in August 1996 that the company move completely away from traditional switching networks? They saw the ability to integrate disparate parts with end-to-end quality of service in ATM so ION customers would receive the highest quality standard of telecommunications services.

While Sprint announced ION relatively recently, it has been putting the network pieces in place for years to meet the bandwidth- and quality-hungry demands of customers. ATM, dense wave-division multiplexing and Synchronous Optical Network (SONET) are the major linchpin technologies that make Sprint ION a reality. It's more than coincidence that Sprint has been leading the industry in the deployment of these technologies for several years.

Sprint ION is about bringing the power of ATM and the Sprint network to the hands of customers. Much like the power that all-digital fiber optics brought to Sprint customers in the'80s, Sprint ION is about to enable history to repeat itself with a new model of telecommunications technology. Please take your seats. The music is about to begin.

Kaplan is senior vice president and chief technology officer at Sprint.