AT&T serves up voice on frame

LAS VEGAS - AT&T, the carrier with the most to lose from voice-over-data technologies, is nonetheless planning to dive deeper into the market, piggybacking voice on the data network service favored by most big enterprise users: frame relay.

The telecom giant next month will announce the AT&T Managed Multimedia Networking Service (MMNS), a combined voice and data frame relay service. Under MMNS, AT&T will install and manage Motorola Vanguard multiservice frame relay access devices (FRAD) at branch and retail locations for users of all sizes.

Unlike several past an-nouncements of converged services that aggregate voice and data traffic, including AT&T's own Integrated Network Connection (INC), MMNS is expected to be ready to go on Day One.

AT&T officials told Network World they have already installed the service for pharmaceutical and banking companies with thousands of locations. The carrier also was discreetly demonstrating the service in its booth at NetWorld+Interop 99 here last week.

To some extent, the MMNS service, whose name may change before it debuts, is an expansion of AT&T's existing managed FRAD program. Some users have leveraged FRADs on their own to begin sending voice traffic over the AT&T frame relay network, acknowledges Bill Callahan, AT&T's director of managed network solutions. "But this is the first time AT&T has come out and said, yes, we're doing voice over frame relay." As part of the managed service, AT&T will specifically tune and monitor each user's frame network for voice.

AT&T's rivals have toyed with similar concepts. Sprint announced voice over frame relay first in 1997 but never rolled it out. Sprint officials recently said users seeking converged services should now look at the company's Integrated On-Demand Network, a still-evolving ATM-based platform for voice, data and video. MCI WorldCom's Advanced Networks division last year introduced a voice-over-frame option, although it does not run over the carrier's principal frame relay network, as does the AT&T offering.

Initially, most AT&T customer sites are expected to use Motorola Vanguard 6430 and 6450 multiservice devices, designed for mid-size branch or regional offices. But sources say the entire Vanguard line, which specializes in multiprotocol data support as well as multimedia applications, will be available.

The MMNS service likely will not come cheap. Al-though AT&T of-ficials last week said they were not ready to release exact service prices, they acknowledged users will have to pay AT&T's regular fees for each frame relay port, permanent virtual circuit (PVC) and dedicated access line. In addition, the Motorola box-es will carry an equipment charge, and AT&T will tack on an additional per-site management fee, as it currently does for existing offerings such as managed router service.

But users will save money by adding voice to the frame relay net, thus eliminating per-minute toll charges. The Motorola boxes support voice-compression down to 5.3K bit/sec, enabling some users to load phone calls and faxes onto their existing frame relay nets, Callahan says.

Still, users will have to be careful to allow for peak periods, cautions Lisa Pierce, a telecom analyst at Giga Information Group. "If there is a fair mix of both traffic types during busy periods, separate PVCs are required, and then the price will go up," she says.

AT&T appears to be willing to take the risk of losing per-minute tolls - the traditional backbone of its business - because MMNS will add to the growing stable of offerings from AT&T Solutions, the company's managed-service and outsourcing arm. Now incorporating the former IBM Global Network and some LAN-management offerings, AT&T Solutions is one of CEO C. Michael Armstrong's favorite units and is on track to contribute at least $4 billion per year to the company's revenue by 2002. MMNS contracts will also keep customers away from increasingly aggressive toll offers from Qwest and other carriers.

AT&T's biggest marketing challenge will be to distinguish MMNS from INC, the service AT&T announced in January that is scheduled to remain in beta testing through the third quarter. With INC, multiple lines are aggregated by an ATM device onto a single T-1 line, Callahan says. But voice and data are split into separate paths in the AT&T long-distance network, resulting in dual network-management facilities and possible toll charges.