WorldCom squeezes frame relay pricing

WorldCom last week announced two unmanaged frame relay service packages that promise cost savings of 30% to 50% over current rates. The company has lowered prices for its low-speed frame circuits to woo small and midsize businesses, providing an alternative to private lines and IP VPNs.

With its Bundled Frame Relay and Economy Frame Relay packages, WorldCom combines fees for ports, permanent virtual circuits (PVC) and committed information rates (CIR) and bases pricing on the company's network architecture.

Under the Bundled Frame Relay plan, companies can choose from 56K to 1.544M bit/sec frame ports with bandwidth guarantees ranging from 16K bit/sec up to T-1 speed. Local access is not included.

A Bundled Frame Relay service customer that has 19 remote locations, each with a 56K bit/sec frame relay port and CIR at 16K bit/sec, will pay about $6,000 per month, roughly half what it would cost under WorldCom's standard frame relay pricing. This is based on a one-year contract and includes a preconfigured Verilink DSU/CSU at each site.

The Economy Frame Relay package only supports CIRs up to 32K bit/sec and does not include hardware, but does include local access to WorldCom's frame relay network. WorldCom is targeting this package at companies that need connectivity for low-bandwidth applications, such as point-of-sale or basic e-mail.

"Economy Frame Relay is a no-frills option. It's for larger customers that have lower bandwidth requirements at remote locations," says Meg Moschetto, a WorldCom marketing executive.

An Economy Frame Relay customer that has 99 remote locations, each with a 56K bit/sec frame relay port and 16K bit/sec CIR over 198 PVCs used to create a meshed network architecture, would pay about $19,000 per month. This price is based on a one-year contract. WorldCom says this customer would see a 40% to 50% cost savings compared with the carrier's standard frame relay offer.