Sprint preps frame service with IP twist
Offering to make debut about two years after rival offerings.
 
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KANSAS CITY, KAN. - Sprint is readying a service designed to better handle frame relay customers' growing IP traffic loads.
Sprint's IP Intelligent Frame Relay service will support fully meshed networks that provide the flexibility of public IP networks, but without the cost of setting up dedicated permanent virtual circuits (PVC) between each site. The service will require customers to dedicate PVCs between their sites and Sprint's frame network.
The service is Sprint's answer to AT&T's IP-Enabled Frame Relay and WorldCom's Private IP services, which have been out for several years. Sprint says its delay with an IP-enabled frame offering stems from the company's focus on its now-defunct Integrated On demand Network (ION) platform. Sprint expected ION to be the converged service for its business and consumer customers.
"AT&T and WorldCom have proven that customers want IP-enabled frame services, and Sprint is now listening to its customers," says Michael Suby, an analyst with Stratecast Partners.
Unlike AT&T and WorldCom, Sprint is bypassing Multi-protocol Label Switching technology and using virtual routing capabilities on Nortel Passport frame relay switches at the network edge to support its IP-enabled frame offering. Suby says it's too soon to say whether Sprint's architecture will provide any competitive advantage.
Sprint says users will pay the same port fees as traditional frame customers, but PVC rates will be higher.
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