Subject: Telecom Newsletter - for Friday, November 19

From: "TONEX Technologies Inc." <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Nov 1999 23:08:45 -0800

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DSL News

The FCC said yesterday that local phone carriers will have to share their lines with high-speed Internet access providers . The ruling was intended to increase the competition in advanced telecommunication and speed residential deployment of DSL technology. 

According to FCC Chairman William Kennard: "Our goal is to get advanced services, like high-speed Internet access, into the home as quickly, efficiently, and inexpensively as possible." 

Up until recently customers subscribing to DSL from competitors, such as Covad Communications and Rhythms NetConnections, were required to buy an additional line from their local phone carrier, boosting the price higher.

RBOCs already deliver DSL to their customers over one line split between voice and data. The FCC rule will force local carriers to do the same for customers who desire a competitor for high-speed access, splitting the lines to the home between the two carriers and the two services. 

The FCC recently rules that the regional carriers were not required to sell DSL to local phone competitors. Thursday's ruling applies to high-speed data providers who need access to the home. 

Fiber Optics News

Today the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) signed a 20 year agreement with Network Plus.  This agreement will alow Network Plus to run cable through an area of MIT that has a link between two conduit systems of Bell Atlantic.  MIT will receive eight dark fibers from Network Plus into the campus as well as additional eight to link MIT with a nearby university.

Network Plus will now be able to finish an 8 mile SONET ring from the Boston area to Cambridge.  This will complete its OC-48 SONET ring that will tie three additional locations in the Network Plus switch.

MCI Frame Relay Upgrade

MCI WorldCom Inc. today upgraded its frame relay disaster recovery system and said its new backup frame relay network would rely on switches and other equipment manufactured by Lucent Technologies Inc. MCI said it would use its existing frame relay pipes-- one Lucent, one Nortel--as temporary backups until the new frame relay network is completed in mid-2000. 

Coming in December, a Frame Shield disaster recovery service will automatically reroute a customer's frame relay traffic to ISDN backup services in the event of network congestion or delays. 

MCI WorldCom also strengthened its Network Assurance initiatives, adding a new proactive notification policy in which the carrier said it will notify customers of outages within 60 minutes after a customer's frame relay network connection has been lost for a 10-minute period. Finally, MCI WorldCom is issuing a series of promotions for frame relay customers. One promotion, called Flat Rate Access, will let users pay a flat fee to transmit data from their location to a frame relay POP, regardless of distance. Another incentive will let customers buy any size port at a price associated with the next smallest port size.