Sprint aims for another 'pin drop' with new network
The multibillion-dollar initiative, which will be called the Integrated On-Demand Network, is the result of a partnering arrangement among Sprint, Bell Communications Research Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc. An additional partner, Radio Shack, will help Sprint distribute its planned services.
The strategy, announced this morning in New York, will encompass local and long-distance services with an end-to-end, seamless data initiative.
Bellcore, of Morristown, N.J., contributed the core carrier software necessary for Sprint's network, while Cisco is providing the edge switching devices, customer premises equipment and directory intelligence.
The extent of Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network introduction will include metropolitan data networks in 36 major U.S. cities this year, and up to 60 major cities by the end of 1999, according to Sprint officials.
"This is literally one line into the home and it gives you virtually unlimited bandwidth," said a Sprint spokesman.
The service will operate at speeds up to 6M bps into a home or business and 1.5M bps back to Sprint's network, officials said.
The bandwidth available to a subscriber using the system will be dynamically controlled by the user, who will also be able to reallocate capacity among voice, data and video calls.
Officials for the Kansas City, Mo., company, a pioneer in deploying nationwide SONET (synchronous optical network) rings with the promise of uninterruptible service, said the strategy eclipses in importance even the early adoption of the all-fiber network.
"This truly is the Big Bang that expands the universe of what telecommunications can do in our homes and businesses," said William Esrey, Sprint's chairman and chief executive officer, in a statement accompanying the announcement.
The key technological ingredients of Sprint's land-line data play include its nationwide fiber network, its early championing of WDM (wave division multiplexing) equipment for ultra-high-speed local access speeds, its incorporation of SONET backbone speeds and ATM (asynchronous transfer mode) transmission on major routes, and DSL (digital subscriber line (DSL) technologies for high-speed user access.