Apr 8, 1996 12:00 PM,

Carriers enhance frame relay services

Denise Pappalardo

Riding the successful wave that frame relay services have recently experienced, Ameritech and LDDS WorldCom separately plan to enhance their frame relay services with new management and dial-up features for increased flexibility.

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Ameritech told Telephony it will announce Net Profit, an enhanced network management service for its frame relay customers, next month.

The new features will let customers monitor and manage their permanent virtual circuit connections, said Eric Hyde, director of data and video product marketing at Ameritech. Customers will be able to track latency and monitor costs using Net Profit, he said.

LDDS also plans to enhance its frame relay management capabilities with a graphical user interface, point-and-click report management system. The management software will let users access their service information through the World Wide Web at some point, but the interexchange carrier would not name a time frame because of security issues.

Customers will be able to access the management platform through a dedicated PVC at its first release, slated for the second quarter of this year. The cost is expected to be about $30 per month for the PVC and $250 for the new management features, said an LDDS spokesman.

The Web management software will be available only to customers who get their frame relay service from a Cascade Communications switch. The IXC already offers WilView GUI management features for its StrataCom-based frame relay service offering. LDDS also plans to change the WilView product name.

Along the lines of AT&T's announcement earlier this year, LDDS plans to announce dial-up asynchronous access to its frame relay service based on Windows 95 software (Telephony, Feb. 5, page 9). Frame relay customers will be able to dial in using an asynchronous modem that supports transmission rates up to 28.8 kb/s (V.34).

The dial-up features are designed to let workers access their corporate frame relay networks from the road. The service is expected to be announced in the second quarter, an LDDS spokeswoman said.