Have telcos missed the multimedia train?

The time has come for the integration of voice, video and data, but public network carriers appear to be missing the integration train as all comers scramble to deliver on the promise of Internet-based multimedia services.

Against the backdrop of constantly improving multimedia software technology, carriers are developing infrastructures that will allow them to offer virtual private networks that use the Internet as a backbone, as well as switched access to the Internet using dial-up access. To support future multimedia services, carriers are also incorporating the latest Internet standards into their frame relay and ATM backbone networks. "Everyone's rushing out into the Internet and trying to find ways of delivering value-added services and content to their subscribers to charge for usage," says Jack Dutzy, vice president of marketing at White Pine Software, Nashau, N.H. "In terms of carriers, cable and media companies, there isn't anybody out in front, but everyone seems to feel an urgent market pull to get there first."

That's a radical change for carriers, which are just waking up to the role the Internet will play in the coming mass market for multimedia. With plenty of bandwidth at hand and strong financial resources to back their business ventures, carriers kept busy in the early 1990s building out their cellular and paging infrastructures. As a result, they lagged behind others when it came to capitalizing on the Internet.

Meanwhile, Internet service providers (ISPs) like PSInet Inc., Herndon, Va., and UUNet Technologies Inc., Fairfax, Va., flourished, fortifying their networks with fast packet technology and new routers in preparation for the Web generation and all its multimedia traffic.

"The Internet carries multimedia faster, easier and cheaper than anything else. It will be the dominant multimedia transmission system in the world by mid-1997," predicts William L. Schrader, chairman, president and chief executive officer of PSINet. "In two years, most computers will have multimedia capabilities, and the Internet will be easier to use."

Partly due to public network carriers' blindness to this market, PSINet grew into a billion-dollar company before it faced a single challenge from a major carrier. MCI finally entered the Internet business in 1995 with a router-based network.

The latest Internet multimedia applications have made major strides in quality-even for modem users. Consider the changes in Internet audio collaboration packages, for example. Both Netscape Communications Inc. and Apple Computer are using a new low-bit-rate audio codec licensed from Voxware Inc., Princeton, N.J., that uses just 2400 b/s of bandwidth.

"They're doing 53-to-1 compression, and the quality is excellent. It's a breakthrough for modem users," says Keith Wimberley, marketing manager at Insoft, Inc., which merged with Netscape last January.

Broadcasting is another possibility on the Internet. In April, Progressive Networks launched a daily news radio network based on its RealAudio server. The network, called Timecast, allows users to schedule selected programs. Apple Computer is also promoting its QuickTime Live! Web site, which carried this spring's Grammy Awards live to ISDN users.

Modem users can even do 24-bit color videoconferencing over basic telephone lines with the Enhanced CU-SeeMe package released by White Pine Software in April. White Pine is positioning its companion video server, dubbed Reflector, as a vehicle for carriers to manage video bandwidth and conduct events and broadcasts.

Still, Internet tools have quite a way to go. "We need to be standards-based, but we have to interoperate with the hodgepodge that's on our customers' premises. Today's Internet audio conferencing packages are [clunky]," notes Steve Starliper, vice president of marketing at !nterprise Networking Services at U S West. "You have to dial in to a server at the same time, and both parties have to have the same client software," he says.

U S West, according to Starliper, is moving into Internet groupware applications and is investigating the emerging multimedia packages.

Clearly, carriers and ISPs are looking for standards to expand the market. Earlier this year, the ITU agreed to adopt the Internet Engineering Task Force's real-time transport protocol (RTP) as the standard for carrying real-time data on Internet protocol (IP) networks. With data timestamping and control mechanisms for synchronizing different streams of data that have timing properties, RTP demultiplexes real-time content at the end computer system. The ITU also adopted the IETF's real-time transport control protocol (RTCP), which supports real-time conferencing on the Internet, including source identification and support for audio and video bridges and multicast-to-unicast translators.

The RTP standard is taking center stage in new multimedia Web browsers, and RTCP is now appearing in multimedia servers embedded in the network.

Netscape, for example, has rallied two dozen companies around its LiveMedia framework of open standards for real-time audio and video communications, including major players such as Apple Computer, Digital Equipment Corp., IBM and Silicon Graphics (see page 43). The Netscape LiveMedia framework is based on open audio and video standards such as MPEG, H.261 and GSM to enable products from a variety of vendors to work together.

A cornerstone of the LiveMedia framework is the Internet RTP, which Netscape and others have licensed from Precept Software Inc., Cupertino, Calif.

"RTP allows software makers to integrate real-time audio and video in their IP-savvy applications in a standard way. It brings interoperability to real-time audio and video applications," says Judy Estrin, president of Precept Software Inc.

The new RTP protocol works hand-in-hand with the Internet Engineering Task Force's resource reservation protocol (RSVP), adopted by Cisco Systems and Bay Networks in their next generation Internet routers designed for multimedia connections. RTP also works with the Internet's multicast capabilities for real-time conferencing in large groups.

With both competition and consumer interest heating up, carriers are finally moving ahead with Internet rollouts. Carriers are moving slowly into multimedia, focusing on fortifying their core network resources while keeping a watchful eye on IP multimedia innovators such as Netscape, Progressive Networks (RealAudio) and White Pine Software (CU-SeeMe videoconferencing).

Apex Global Internet Services, Dearborn, Mich., is providing the dial-in access for Pacific Bell Internet Services' trial network. Pacific Bell is also investing in Internet network access points (NAPs) that act as a crossroads between different providers on the Internet (Figure 1).

Pacific Bell and StrataCom are implementing OC-12 level interfaces on the ATM switches that make up Pacific Bell's NAPs in Palo Alto and Oakland, Calif. "ATM is fundamental to transforming the Internet into a high-speed multimedia infrastructure," notes Jim Diestel, director of Pacific Bell's Internet NAP.

Support for the RSVP protocol is key to the future multimedia infrastructure. The StrataCom BPX switches will be upgraded to support RSVP services to allow the mapping of different Internet applications onto ATM's native quality of service (QoS) levels. For example, IP multicast traffic used during broadcasts on the Internet's Multimedia Backbone (MBONE) will ride on top of native ATM multicast services.

In a pioneering effort, StrataCom is porting the Internet RSVP QoS protocol to its ATM switch for Pacific Bell's multimedia-capable backbone. The ATM Forum is scrambling to align ATM's QoS and traffic parameters to support emerging Internet QoS standards like RSVP.

"Today, the correspondence between ATM and Internet QoS classes is not a 1-to-1 mapping," said John McQuillan at the ATM Year '96 conference held this spring in San Jose. "Many people think QoS will arrive in the Internet protocols first, which will drive ATM. ATM should support RSVP," he said. U S West will enhance its !nteract Internet service for business work groups when it rolls out access to Lotus Notes groupware this month. Remote users can dial in and emulate on-campus Lotus Notes connectivity.

"From a carrier perspective, we'll be putting these applications on servers in our network, allowing customers to interact over the Notes platform," says Starliper.

Phase two of the rollout occurs when multimedia capabilities are layered on top of those applications, affording audio and video collaboration and interaction, according to Starliper.

"This type of client software could be Java-enabled," he notes, referring to Sun Microsystems' successful new programming language that's being used to embed interactive multimedia into Web sites.

After being licensed by Apple Computer, Microsoft, Netscape Communications and Novell Inc., Java is being used to deliver some interesting interactive services. New York City-based Web developers ACTV Inc. and EarthWeb LLC are making it possible for broadcasters to simultaneously send a separate stream of supplementary information on the Web to enrich the programming. Their new Java-based software application, called HyperTV, updates a Web site with relevant data as the program is broadcast. Potential uses include sending supplemental information along with educational, news and sports programs.

Most public carriers are finally well on their way to supporting Internet multimedia by packaging Internet access and ISDN lines. Ameritech is planning to launch ISDN Internet access and content services in the third quarter of 1996, targeted at small businesses and consumers. Bell Atlantic is also ramping up its own Internet service, which it will begin offering with dial-up and ISDN access as soon as it files a comparably efficient interconnection (CEI) plan with the Federal Communications Commission this summer.

"As a regulated phone company, if we want to sell switched Internet access, we have to have a filing in place with the FCC that describes the rules [for how it will happen]. Then we'll start using Internet access as a promotional vehicle to spur interest in tariffed ISDN service and additional phone lines," says a Bell Atlantic spokesman. "It'll be one-stop shopping for the consumer."

Bell Atlantic offers ISDN in all 19 LATAs and has 170,000 lines installed. It forecasts growth at between 10% and 12% and is paying a bounty to ISPs that bring in new ISDN users to Bell Atlantic.

Large ISPs Ahead ISPs are clearly ahead of the game-despite the current activity at the carriers. PSINet, for example, began deploying its private IP-over-frame relay network in 1992 and transitioned to an ATM backbone beginning in 1993. That move enabled the ISP to overcome the latencies associated with multi-hop router networks.

Carriers that are trying to play catch-up and ramping up quickly to provide Internet services must often outsource portions of their access networks to large ISPs and, in some cases, purchase them.

MFS Communications Co., for example, recently plunked down $2 billion in stock to merge with UUNet, which operates a frame relay backbone that reaches 255 domestic Internet points of presence (Telephony, May 6, page 7). The challenge for the companies is to integrate MFS' domestic fiber network that links 49 metropolitan areas with UUNet's network to provide managed Internet services.

Like U S West, UUNet markets its enhanced packet-switching capabilities as a secure, virtual private network service that uses the Internet as a backbone. MFS and UUNet plan to unify their networks to offer guaranteed levels of service to Internet customers. When end-to-end control over bandwidth and latency converges, UUNet intends to support voice- and video-based services on the merged network.

Differentiating Internet service on the basis of QoS has been a major theme at PSINet for some time. The ISP has more than 4000 subscribers for its managed InterFrame and InterMAN services.

"We go out of our way to support multimedia over TCP/IP by controlling latency and packet loss to deliver real-time audio and video streams," says PSINet's Schrader. "And we have probably bought more ISDN lines than any single RHC has sold."

PSINet will deliver a turnkey Internet videoconferencing system for point-to-point and multipoint conferences later in 1996.

"The difficulty with past videoconferencing systems is that you had to pre-plan the videoconference hookup. Imagine if you had to pre-program and pre-identify who you wanted to talk to on the public network," says Schrader. "The Internet is the new public switched data network. We're migrating a complete videoconferencing system to the Internet to give users the same freedom on the PSDN with video that they have on the PSTN with voice.

"There will be tons of new applications that require specialized embedded servers in the Net, and that's where we add our value," he continues. "On the consumer side, much of the content that consumers want will be migrated and embedded in the Net, including movies."

ATM Slashes Latency Major ISPs continue to fortify their backbone networks using ATM, citing the technology's scalability and ability to overcome end-to-end delays or latency as its key benefits in the delivery of multimedia services. PSINet is also testing ATM switches that support switched virtual circuits (SVCs) for deployment in 1997. SVCs will allow customers to open up committed bandwidth to one or more Internet sites on the fly.

In control of its own frame relay network, PSINet can tune the speed and delay of individual permanent virtual circuits (PVCs). "We use frame relay PVCs to fool the Cisco routers into thinking that they are more richly-connected than they are. We tell all 320 routers in our network that they are within four hops of each other across T-3 lines. In that manner, a cross-country connection that would typically incur 500 milliseconds delay can be cut to 50 milliseconds," says Schrader.

U S West is rolling out all of its future services-including Internet access-onto a single integrated switching platform based on the Newbridge 32170 frame-cell switch.

"When the LATA boundaries drop, instead of having 20 LATAs and 20 different platforms, we'll be able to connect them together with a data link infrastructure," says U S West's Starliper.

"As we layer out Internet services, we'll be able to do 'IP peering' between our edge switches rather than routing across 14 states. In a sense, we'll be one huge NAP," he says. The ATM backbone slashes latency across the long haul, he says.

Apex Global Information Services is tripling the size of its network with new ATM backbone nodes in New York City, Boston, Dallas, Houston and Phoenix. The company already has six DS-3 (45 Mb/s) backbone locations that it is migrating to OC-3 (155 Mb/s). AGIS made its ATM move after booking $15 million worth of data transmission services from LDDS WorldCom.

"The benefits of using WorldCom's ATM services are quality of service and flexibility of configuration," says Phil Lawlor, president of AGIS. "Private-line, router-based networks are essentially 'one size fits all,' and you either have too much bandwidth or not enough. With ATM, frame relay and service interworking, we have scalability necessary to meet the ever-increasing demands placed on our network."

PSINet is also interested in working with carriers to deploy asymmetrical digital subscriber line technology or cable modems within its network to enable high-speed multimedia applications, but it is still searching for partner that has an adequate solution available now. Both carriers and cable operators are still testing these technologies-and obtaining FCC approval or a cable franchise for commercial deployment is slowing market entry.

The residential broadband access being tested by BellSouth blends interactive video with high-speed Internet access. As BellSouth ramps up the marketing part of its near video-on-demand (VOD) trial in Chamblee, Ga., it will offer its subscribers high-speed cable modem access to the Internet this summer. BellSouth will install personal cable TV modems supplied by LANcity Corp., Andover, Mass., and switch customers onto the Internet or an on-line service like America Online at access speeds up to 10 Mb/s on a shared-channel basis. The company is negotiating with a few large ISPs to provide Internet access until it can develop its own capability, which also is on the drawing board.

Even though the LANcity modem is rated at a full 10 Mb/s in both the upstream and downstream directions, subscribers will have to compete for bandwidth with all the homes served off the neighborhood node-potentially hundreds of homes. In addition, BellSouth will offer access to a library of CD-ROM programs such as games, educational programs and databases on a 48-hour rental basis. The BellSouth headends have Hewlett-Packard servers in place to store and distribute videos, and full VOD service is planned later this year. "Bandwidth management is going to be critical, especially for cable companies moving onto the Internet," says White Pine's Jack Dutzy. "Even where they have a fairly good-sized 10 Mb/s pipe, when you start dividing it among a number users, it can quickly be absorbed." Cable TV companies are looking at White Pine's Reflector video server for its ability to fine-tune data streams on both the subscriber and server side.

This spring, BellSouth negotiated a cable TV franchise for its video trial in Chamblee that will allow the carrier to begin charging for interactive services later this year. Negotiating with each of the counties and municipalities can be very time consuming, according to a BellSouth spokesman.

"The whole equation of competitive cable service is new, and some localities are taking their time on it. We haven't completely ruled out operating under the open video system (OVS) rules. But right now, our bet is on the cable side of the equation," he says. The FCC finalized the OVS rules two weeks ago (Telephony, June 10, page 9).

Clearly, the multimedia-enabled Internet is driving demand for bandwidth for both virtual private networks that use the Internet as a backbone and public Internet services. Carriers that enhance their backbones with ATM switching to lower latencies and to host the most compelling new content and services will remain competitive in the era of Internet multimedia-even if they seem to have caught a later train.

Barry Phillips is a freelance writer based in Moss Landing, Calif. His e-mail address is barryp@ico.com.