SBC goes national with IP; takes dual net approach to convergence

SBC Communications is taking its first stab at being a nationwide service provider, announcing today it will be offering a portfolio of IP services to businesses and enterprises both inside and outside its incumbent territory.

SBC unveiled new hosted IP VPN and IP voice services, utilizing its OC-192 IP network run off of Cisco multi-protocol label switching equipment. SBC initially will offer IP services in 18 in-territory markets, extending that to 15 out-of-region markets by the end of the year. By the end of the second quarter SBC expects to be in 70 markets and by the end of 2004, it plans to have service in most cities, covering 1500 points of presence nationwide.

The company’s recently clearance by the FCC to offer long distance provided the impetus.

“Now that we’ve gotten deregulation from the FCC we’re able to become a nationwide provider,” said Brett Theiss, director of IP services for SBC. “This is our first venture into the national market with our IXC competitors.”

Unlike Qwest, which on Monday announced a deal to buy softswitches from Lucent Technologies, SBC is taking a dual network approach to convergence. Instead of shifting legacy networks over to IP, SBC will run a separate IP private backbone, controlled from a central network operations center, which will monitor and manage all VPN, data and voice switching for SBC’s new customers. While SBC has plans to launch its own network operations center, it is currently working with Level 3 to provide it’s (3)Tone hosted IP Centrix service. Sylantro Systems will provide the IP Centrix software to customers.

In addition, SBC will continue to offer frame relay--and private line--services to customers, allowing them to integrate the new IP elements gradually into their networks. SBC will also provide IP services to customers using competitor’s frame relay networks.

“One of the main attraction for a new customer is they won’t have to forklift that frame relay network to put in a new one,” Theiss said. “We’ve made sure this portfolio is interoperable with the legacy network. They can pick and choose at which locations they want to use the new services.”

Theiss said the flexibility of the service should persuade many customers to take those first steps toward convergence, as they not only can test new services without changing their basic network architecture, but also keep their current carrier suppliers. That flexibility will also help push SBC’s name into the forefront of national providers, helping to offset the view that SBC is merely a local provider.