Sprint's New ION products

Wed Jun 3 16:28:22 UTC 1998

On Wed, 3 Jun 1998 kbrown at primelink.com 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.

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. 

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).

Following the ION announcement has been singularly frustrating due to the
absence of any technical content in their announcements.

Jeff                         

#######################################################
# Jefferson Burson		Tracor Aerospace, Inc.#
# Internetwork Manager		6500 Tracor Lane      #
# jburson at tracor.com		Austin, TX 78724-2000 #
# Voice: 512.929.4192		Pager: 512.606.6792   #
#######################################################

> 
> Our local Sprint outlet, to whom I am contracted to administer several
> pieces of their local dial in access project has just about finished
> installed the DMS100 switch (yep...we don't have ISDN yet around here).
> According to the Sprint Internal press release "Sprint today"  they intend
> to completely change their local technologies (scrap the old, in with the
> new) instead of upgrading their existing network like other carriers.
> 
> Announced also was the fact that Cisco Systems has been
> designing/testing/developing the hardware to make this project work, with
> BellCore doing the software for the project.  Rollout to major business is
> expected to happen in large markets sometime yet this year with residential
> offerings happening sometime in 1999.
> 
> Has anyone heard any additional information or have any more insight into
> this announcement?  I am curious how this might affect the remainder of the
> industry.
> 
> Kevin Brown
> Huber & Associates, Inc.
> Networking Technologies
> kbrown at primelink.com
> http://www.primelink.com/haa/lanwan
> 
> 