North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Sprint's New ION products
Jeff Burson wrote: > On Wed, 3 Jun 1998 [email protected] wrote: > > I'm pretty sure I'm not the first to read about this in our local paper, > > but Sprint announced their new strategy for integrating voice, data, video > > over "standard phone lines." They are calling this the Integrated > > On-Demand Network or ION for short. It sounds an awful lot like ISDN > > services from perhaps an ESS switch (8 viable bonded channels max) versus > > the DMS100 (2 bonded channels max). > > An article at wired.com had a little more detail than the marketing hype > that dominated the Sprint press release. > > The only additional details that emerged were as follows: > > 1. The Sprint backbone that ION relies on will be the ATM network that > they've been working on. ATM to the home. What sort of loop, though? Bandwidth concerns? > 2. For the end user, Sprint is going to be reselling various LECs' > ADSL offerings and then charging an extra $200 to install a metering > device at the end user's location. The Chicago Tribune says you'll be able to buy it at Radio Shack :-) (Which means it'll be $350, but that's another story in itself). > It's not apparent as to whether ION for both the business user and the > home user will rely on a LEC's ADSL (a scary thought). Doubtful. It says it relies on the ATM network that Sprint's been building. There's supposedly a test rollout by 1999 in the major markets to small business and home-based businesses.. which, as we all know, means they probably havent even begun to think about how to do it. :-) > Following the ION announcement has been singularly frustrating due to the > absence of any technical content in their announcements. "Up to 100 times faster than conventional modems" is said in their press release. Taking a conventional stable modem to be 28.8, that puts the connection at 360 Kbytes/sec, or ~1.8 DS1 (2.88 Mbit). If a 56k were used as reference, that puts the connection at 5.7 Mbit, still DSL speed.. I wonder what kind of site equipment you need to support this, and what limitations will be placed on that. This is leading in the com-priv sort of way, but next issues: Obtaining telephone numbers? Local tarriffs? What defines "long distance"? Can you make a call or fax to some IP address (or equivalent) to another ION user, bypassing transition to the analog (LEC/Telco) network, and have reduced tarriffs? Perhaps this $200 unit is the NT1-equivalent. If so, it's damn cheap. If not, why isnt billing built into the customer-end equipment? I'll stop asking questions before people think Jim Fleming took over my email account. :-p FWIW, there is a dumb playback of the announcement at 888-590-5970.. http://www.sprint.com/sprint/press/releases/9806/9806010583.html It doesnt tell a whole lot (still listening to it), but whatever. If anyone knows how to get an AT&T 8520T to pipe into the line-in on an Ultra, I'll make an MP3.. :-) -- jamie rishaw (dal/efnet:gavroche) American Information Systems, Inc. rdm: "Religion is obsolete." gsr: "By what?" jgr: "Solaris." (1996) Tel:312.425.7140, FAX:312.425.7240
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