Multiaccess support, ISP integrates access platform with Kentrox

Apex Global Information Service, a wholesale Internet service provider, is using access devices from ADC Kentrox that let the ISP connect its customers over frame relay and asynchronous transfer mode connections to AGIS' nationwide OC-3 and OC-12 backbone.

AGIS started deploying ADC Kentrox's AAC-3 ATM access concentrators in early 1995 for frame relay and ATM access to other service providers' networks. AGIS provides Internet access to carriers such as Ameritech, Pacific Bell, Bell Atlantic and several interexchange carriers, said Peter Kline, senior engineer at the Dearborn, Mich.-based AGIS.

AGIS is one of a only a few national ISPs created after the National Science Foundation discontinued its management of the Internet backbone and opened the Internet to carriers. WorldCom's ATM network-based on Cascade Communications and StrataCom switches and Cisco Systems 7000 routers-primarily constitutes AGIS' network. The ISP maintains its routing and access equipment at points of presence around the country.

The ISP uses the AAC-3 to create logical ATM connections between its Cascade 9000 frame relay and its Cascade 500 ATM switches and its customers' networks. The ISP can integrate several different wide area network technologies and protocols over an ATM connection.

The AAC-3 also supports switched multimegabit data service, but AGIS is not yet using the device for SMDS. Some of its customers plan to use the high-speed data service for their Internet services, however.

"The AAC-3 is a compact, easy-to-configure device and has performed flawlessly over the past year for us," Kline said.

AGIS is evaluating new frame relay-to-ATM interworking features that it expects to deploy "really soon," Kline said. ADC also added SMDS-to-ATM capability to its AAC-3.

AGIS is using ADC Kentrox's AAC-3 access devices to link its customers around the country to the Internet. The device supports: ¥ ATM ¥ SMDS ¥ Frame relay