Business-class DSL vs. frame relay
 
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We recently began a discussion of whether it's likely that low-cost ADSL and cable modem Internet access services will force a drastic reduction in frame relay pricing. The gist was that you get a lot more bandwidth for the buck with DSL and cable modem services than you do with a traditional frame relay service. However, the Internet services lack the inherent reliability and security of frame relay virtual circuits.
If you compare bare-bones throughput of a typical asymmetric DSL Internet service with bare-bones 56K bit/sec frame relay service in a typical interstate environment, for example, the ADSL service will provide significantly higher throughput in almost all cases for a much lower price. But what if you absolutely require service-level guarantees? Well, it turns out that ISPs are starting to offer business-class ADSL services with associated service-level agreements (SLA). As you might expect, these services tend to be more expensive than the common $40 to $60 per month prices of best effort ADSL service. But they are still significantly less expensive than equivalent frame relay services. Further, as a part of the business-class ADSL service, you get fixed IP addresses with domain name service, enabling you to run on-site e-mail and Web services. At higher speeds, the pricing differential between guaranteed IP-over-DSL services and frame relay becomes even more pronounced. For example, consider that one provider, NetMCR (www.netmcr.com), offers a "guaranteed" 512K by 768K bit/sec service for $349 per month, which would be $748 for a point-to-point configuration. By contrast, a typical price for a pair of 512K bit/sec ports and permanent virtual circuits is on the order of $3000 per month, not including the requisite T-1 access links. So you're looking at more than four times the price for frame relay vs. guaranteed Internet service. Similarly, Zyan Communications offers 768K bit/sec symmetric DSL services for $259 per month per site (under 30 nodes and up to 32 IP addresses) and for $365 per month per site (more than 30 nodes and up to 256 IP addresses). This provider does offer a 99.9% network uptime guarantee, which may or may not be stringent enough for your needs - but it isn't bad. There remain many outstanding questions: How widely available are these services? How reliable are the guarantees? Are there network metric guarantees other than bandwidth and uptime (such as latency and packet loss)? But the services deserve comparison, especially for this price differential.RELATED LINKS
Steven Taylor, consultant and broadband packet evangelist, and Joanie Wexler, an independent networking technology editor and writer, team up to bring you this analysis and commentary. Taylor specializes in education and market analysis, and Wexler adds incisive reporting and research. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to www.webtorials.com, the first Web site dedicated exclusively to market studies and technology tutorials in the Broadband Packet areas of Frame Relay, ATM, and IP.
Feedback and additional topic ideas are welcome. Please contact taylor@webtorials.com or joanie@jwexler.com.
Frame Relay archive
Past newsletters.
Network World, 05/22/00. Newsletter: ADSL and frame relay
Network World Frame Relay, 09/29/99. Archive of Network World on Frame Relay newsletters
