Subject: (FRNETMIB) What is the reason for some renewed interest in frame relay?

From: "Chel Lu" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 04:58:42 -0700

Hello,

I've been hearing that there is renewed interest
in frame relay - both in terms of equipment vendors
wanting to provide this in their offerings and
service providers rolling out new services. Is
this true?

If true, what drives this renewed interest? My
earlier understanding was that frame relay seemed
to be moving towards an end as a technology in use
with more and more users preferring services such
as DSL, ATM, Ethernet-to-the-metro, etc.

Any insight will be helpful to understand.

Thanks
Chel

-- 
Chel Lu ([email-masked])

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From: "Andrew G. Malis" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 13:18:44 -0400

Chel,

Simply put, Frame Relay services remain very attractively priced when 
compared to other alternatives, and the market seems to be continuing to 
grow even in these difficult times.  Most FR networks are star-topology 
VPNs, and most remote tail circuits are still on the lower end of the BW 
scale: NxDS0 and DS1, although the central sites are moving to DS3 or even 
faster in some cases.  Many services providers also now offer FR/ATM 
interworking, where the remote sites use FR and the central servers use 
higher-speed ATM.

AT&T is now also offering a separate "IP-Enabled FR" service, which is 
really IP router interconnection over an MPLS router network using RFC 2547 
VPNs; the tail circuits to the customers use IP over FR (RFC 2427), 
terminate the FR in the first router, extract the IP packets, and route 
them within the VPN.  The advantage to the customer is that they only need 
a single DLCI to the service provider for any-to-any connectivity in the 
VPN; the disadvantage is that it only supports IP, rather than all FR-based 
applications.  AT&T still has its traditional FR service as well.

I hope this helps.

Cheers,
Andy

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