BellSouth gets more frame relay-friendly

ATLANTA - BellSouth has begun providing customers with a single point of contact for frame relay installation, hardware and managed services - an offering that could save customers time and money.

Before the new Complete Frame offering was introduced, BellSouth customers had to go to different places within the carrier to coordinate the hardware and circuit installation and ongoing management for their frame relay networks.

Complete Frame also gives customers the option of ordering an enhanced router management service. This service involves monitoring enterprise frame relay drops in the U.S. or internationally that are part of a BellSouth customer's network, but aren't provided directly by Bell South, says Diane Turcan, segment marketing manager for large business services.

Turcan estimates that the streamlined ordering process should cut customer installation times in half. Installation times would vary depending on the number of frame relay drops a customer required and what management services they ordered.

Complete Frame should also save customers money vs. ordering each component of a frame relay network separately, Turcan says. Pricing begins at $289 per month per site for an unmanaged 64K-bit/sec service.

Most carriers already offer managed frame relay services like Complete Frame, either publicly or at the request of large enterprise customers, says Sandra Palumo, an analyst with The Yankee Group.

"They're trying to maintain frame relay's place in the market," she says. "A lot of enterprises are looking at things like IP VPNs, and the carriers aren't interested in having everyone move over to the new technology all at once."

Speeds available under Complete Frame range from 64K to 45M bit/sec. The offering is available on two- and three-year contract terms.

Contact Senior Writer Michael Martin

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