Subject: [NEXTEL-1] AT&T announces VoIP intentions

From: "Paul J. Zawada" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 12 Sep 2003 09:46:11 -0500

Looks like AT&T will be moving from circuit switching to VoIP in the 
next few years...   No mention of ATM though...

http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/11/HNattnetwork_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/11/HNattnetwork_1.html

AT&T to invest $3 billion in 2003 for global network
Plans include moving to optics-based architecture, having 
edge-to-edge connectivity

By  Allison  Taylor,  ITWorldCanada.com
September 11, 2003  

AT&T will spend US$3 billion in capital expenditures this year to 
completely transform its global network from having a voice-based 
carrier infrastructure into a single Internet Protocol (IP)-based 
network, the telco said on Wednesday. The project is expected to be 
completed by 2005.

"In essence our objective is to try to evolve and we are much further 
along than what is perceived in the industry," said Hossein 
Eslambolchi, president of AT&T Labs, chief technology officer (CTO) 
of AT&T and chief information officer (CIO) of AT&T Business.

Over the summer, AT&T announced a global investment of $500 million 
this year to improve its worldwide network. In a global 
teleconference Eslambolchi said AT&T has several major strategic 
initiatives to build the network as the company evolves its network 
to an IP optical-based core architecture and continues to consolidate 
its legacy networks.

Some of the planned initiatives include moving the optics into the 
edges of the network from beyond the core, moving from a 
circuit-based network to packets, having edge-to-edge connectivity, 
and becoming completely automated.

AT&T plans to retire 270 legacy systems across the world by the end 
of 2005. Approximately 130 legacy systems were retired over the past 
18 months, with another 140 systems slated for phase out over the 
next two years.

"We already have more IP traffic or data traffic, as compared to 
voice traffic," Eslambolchi said. "Voice is still a critical 
application for customers globally."
Eslambolchi said that as AT&T continues to switch over to voice over 
IP (VoIP), the adoption and deployment rates will likely take about a 
decade to be fully IP around the world.

In the optical arena, the company has already deployed 104 
intelligent optical switches.

"The advantage is to allow point-and-click provisioning for 
customers, in essence as real-time bandwidth provisioning of the 
services to our customers," Eslambolchi said.

Moving the network from circuits to packets is something that AT&T 
has already accomplished, Eslambolchi said, and the focus will 
eventually turn to evolving the network into an IP-based 
Multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network.

There are a total of 37,000TB of data moving across the network, he 
explained, with about 1,000TB of traffic on the IP network compared 
with the equivalent of 450TB a day moving on the voice switches. 
There is an 8:1 ratio of packet traffic on the AT&T network compared 
to voice traffic.

Deploying IP-based MPLS allows the company to react to information in 
milliseconds, and to "drive services with higher level of quality," 
he said. He added that by implementing virtual private networks 
(VPNs) within the MPLS architecture the level of capability, 
reliability and security would improve.

Currently, the MPLS is at the core of the network, but will 
eventually be deployed globally at the edge of the network as well.

The idea of moving the network distribution from a top-to-top 
capability to having edge-to-edge connectivity is also something that 
AT&T will turn its attention to in the next few years.

"The battleground in the 21st century is about who has got the best 
network from the edge-to-edge of network," Eslambolchi said. "To be 
able to access directly to customers is a fundamental strategy for 
AT&T."

AT&T has traditionally been seen as having pipes and ports to 
applications in the network, but this perception and the idea of AT&T 
being a commodity based on services is changing as the company moves 
into having an application aware-network, he said.

"A significant amount of energy has been put into improving cycle 
times and the defect rate, to offer services in much more dynamic 
time and real-time," he explained. Some of those services include the 
ordering system and the network management system.

Eslambolchi did not discuss software or hardware programs or partners 
that would be involved in the network. However, on Tuesday Murray 
Hill, New Jersey-based Lucent Technologies Inc. announced a 
partnership with AT&T to provide advanced optical technology for its 
network.

-- 
Paul J. Zawada, PE       | Principal Network Research Engineer
[email-masked]          | National Center for Supercomputing Applications
+1 217 649 2233          | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 04:05:00 -0400

Sprint is already gearing  up!  They will deploy VoIP 1st.

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From: Todd Marshall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 07:55:53 -0500

UWB/ATM Micro Web Configuration:
================================
AT&T does VoIP
================================
Node cost: $200
Appropriation ($M): $ 3000.000
Area: 3618770 sq. mi
Population:  280000000
Appropriation per person: $11
Total potential nodes: 15000000
Link distance: 2790ft
1 out of 18.7 people become nodes
================================
If all people were nodes:
--------------------------------
Link distance: 650ft
Node cost (after subsidy): $189

Paul J. Zawada wrote:

> <http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/11/HNattnetwork_1.html?source=rss&url=http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/09/11/HNattnetwork_1.html>
>
>
>
>

---

From: Todd Marshall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 08:00:24 -0500

Amazing. The networks are already using ATM to carry their IP. So now 
they're making the revolutionary move to add MPLS to IP so it can try to 
do VoIP. The strategy is to make IP look like ATM. And then they will 
carry that IP/MPLS over ATM.
/Todd

---

From: "Paul J. Zawada" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 11:03:43 -0500

Did you read the article Todd?  It says specifically that MPLS is at 
the core of the network, not ATM.  Why on earth would you run MPLS 
over ATM anyway?   It's terribly redundant.  In fact, some hardware 
vendors are starting to provide solutions tunnel all sorts of legacy 
networks, including ATM, through MPLS!  So rather than running IP 
over ATM, some carriers will probably end up running ATM over IP... 
that's what's Amazing.

BTW, most major Internet backbones today are Packet Over Sonet  (POS) 
networks with OC48c and OC192c links.   (If you don't believe me, 
hang out on the NANOG mailing list awhile and listen in to the 
discussion...)  ATM (AAL5) SAR chips top out at OC12.   Try to buy an 
OC48 or OC192 ATM interface for a Cisco or Juniper router and you're 
out of luck, but if you want an OC48 or OC192 POS interface you have 
plenty of options.

"IP Optical" (as in the original article) refers to a class of 
technology where IP/ MPLS rides directly on the glass without any 
underlying transport network like ATM or SONET.    Some folks are 
building IP WANs with and 10-Gbps ethernet connected directly to 
DWDM gear.  Even SONET is starting to get left behind.

I don't doubt that AT&T has a large ATM backbone for enterprise ATM 
and Frame networks. They even offer access to their Internet backbone 
via ATM.  But according to 
http://www.business.att.com/default/index.jsp?pageid=backbone_detailed 
they have an OC192 IP backbone, not ATM.    If I'm mistaken, can you 
point me to an article, web page, etc. that can straighten me out?

ATM is a legacy protocol on it's way out of the mainstream.

--zawada

---

From: sparkie_rf <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 16:23:23 -0000

--- In [email-masked], "Paul J. Zawada" <zawada@n...> 
wrote:
> 
> Did you read the article Todd?  
> 

Ahem, brother.

Somebody finally speaks the TRUTH!!!

---

From: Todd Marshall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 13:31:05 -0500

> Did you read the article Todd?  

Yes ... I scanned it.

> It says specifically that MPLS is at
> the core of the network, not ATM.

Did you read it Paul? It says:

Currently, the MPLS is at the core of the network, but will eventually 
be deployed globally at the edge of the network as well.

> Why on earth would you run MPLS
> over ATM anyway?   

ATM "is" MPLS. The labels are the VCI and VPI. The switching is in 
hardware. Would you be happier if they had called ATM Multiprotocol 
Label Switching? That's really a better name for it. ATM isn't 
asychronous at all.

> It's terribly redundant.  

The word "foolish" comes to mind.

> In fact, some hardware
> networks, including ATM, through MPLS!  

The phrase "ridiculously foolish" comes to mind.

> So rather than running IP

The phrase "amazingly ridiculously foolish" comes to mind.

Lets reveiw the bidding.

IP: Variable length large packets with large header. Often protocols 
need to wrap them to get security or QoS. Often protocols have to take 
them apart to meet MTU restrictions. When it goes great distances it 
must do it in very long hops because it can exhaust its TTL (256 hops). 
Each packet may take a separate route to the destination and thus 
easily, and often, arrive out of order. The destination must wait a 
while as it reorders packets to know it has a connection break or has 
dropped a packet. Connection oriented protocols (which you need to do 
VoIP) get scalded by the connectionless protocols. They throttle back 
with congestion and the misbehaving traffic dominates the network. When 
carrying 8kbps compressed voice, which wants a latency of 1/8 of  second 
or  less, packets must leave when filled to 125 bytes ... regardless of 
how big they are. With a header of  24 bytes, that's about 20% tare 
weight. So they don't do it that way. They do all kinds of bundeling and 
unbundeling of the calls. These they pull onto arteries growing ever and 
ever larger. They put it on glass and do wave division multiplexing. But 
when they reach a node, they have to take it all apart again to direct 
individual calls (packets) to the appropriate next node. So they try to 
do traffic engineering and make up "unit trains" so they don't have to 
be in the "package delivery" business. It gets real real complicated.

"The advantage is to allow point-and-click provisioning for customers, 
in essence as real-time bandwidth provisioning of the services to our 
customers," Eslambolchi said.

Yeh ... right.

The advantage is to get out of ATM PVCs and go to ATM SVCs. The 
advantage is to get out of trunking and to go to a web. The advantage is 
to throttle traffic at the edge to protect SLA committments rather than 
try to deal with the bad actors in the cloud. ATM does all of this ... 
it is its inate ability.

The idea of moving the network distribution from a top-to-top capability 
to having edge-to-edge connectivity is also something that AT&T will 
turn its attention to in the next few years." The battleground in the 
21st century is about who has got the best network from the edge-to-edge 
of network," Eslambolchi said. "To be able to access directly to 
customers is a fundamental strategy for AT&T."

ATM: Fixed length small packets with small header. When it goes great 
distances it can take several orders of magnitude more hops than IP with 
the same latency and jitter. The cells maintain their order. They travel 
in connections so there is no need for TTL. If a connection breaks, both 
ends know immediately. The traffic is easily throttled at the edges. A 
cell only carries 48 bytes so only waits 40ms for its compressed voice 
payload. For IP to attain this first low component of latency, the 
header would be about 1/2 the payload size ... can you say "cell tax?"

> networks with OC48c and OC192c links.   

... which is fine for best effort file transfers or UDP broadcasting. 
It's lousy for voice. And the article was about VoIP. An OC192 will 
carry about 1 million compressed voice calls. Do you know how much work 
that is to direct all those calls a packet at a time using IP 
techniques? Remember, MPLS is just about giving IP packets labels so new 
(expensive) switches can treat them as if they were ATM cells. When they 
map IP/MPLS onto ATM, they actually try to map those labels to the ATM 
VPI/VCI.

> (If you don't believe me,
> discussion...)  

I'll do that ... please give me a link.

> ATM (AAL5) SAR chips top out at OC12. 

That's true ... and that's plenty for doing things like routing calls if 
you do it in a web. Remember, the article was about VoIP.  It's even 
plenty for the largest single bandwidth connection you can describe to 
me (i.e. one where you haven't trunked a bunch of traffic onto a single 
connection). Where the carriers get in trouble is in their classic 
trunking strategies. They keep trying to bring everything to huge pipes. 
If nothing else, they exhaust the VPI/VCI addressing space.  If the 
nodes are layed out in a web, the 500+Mbps OC12 will handle over 60K 
compressed calls ... without traffic engineering when ATM SVCs are 
employed.. It will handle 12-30Mbps video channels. With DWDM it's wise 
to break down to this level of granularity (on the glass many OC12s are 
running in parallel if necessary and may be packaged into SONET frames 
or as you suggest later, in their own DWDM protocol.). An OC12 is a 
pretty good level of granularity for doing this. An OC192 is just too big.

> Try to buy an

Right ... like the option to spend big bucks on complicated hardware to 
break apart the POS at each hop and put it back together again for the 
next hop. I don't want to try to buy OC48 or OC192. I want to buy OC12 
or smaller ... and lots of them formed into a web with many of them 
running in parallel (even if by DWDM).

> underlying transport network like ATM or SONET.    

Fine ... but it's still packets. All the MPLS does is tell it what train 
to get on next when it gets to the station. Without it, the router 
determines the next best (or usable) hop for the packet ... even if that 
turns out to be just following the packet ahead of it. And the packets 
can go in circles ... that's why they had to invent the TTL. MPLS 
mitigates that problem ... but ATM never had it in the first place. MPLS 
is about giving IP an ATM connection look.

> Some folks are

All right ... now tell me what kind of individual connections need that 
kind of bandwidth? I once saw a presentation of a switch that had 48 
PowerPCs each with a huge chunk of memory. It's job? ... take apart 
these big trains of IP packets and repackage them for their trip to the 
next node.

> and Frame networks. 

I can't speak for AT&T. I do know a carrier with multiple layers of 
backbones (they called it a layered network), each carrying different 
classes of traffic, and all using ATM PVC's ... much of it circuit 
emulation. On some of those layers they do package it into SONET rings 
because that's how they have been taught to do glass. That's how you 
"have" to do glass if you're using a trunking strategy because when you 
break a link you lose everything. You have a gazillion PVCs you have to 
manually get hooked back up.

And Frame networks, also greatly popular, get into all kinds of issues 
if they are not put together as "full mesh". And when they mitigate the 
cascading full mesh issues for frame, they start looking a lot like ATM too.

> They even offer access to their Internet backbone

link to page not found. Again, I can't speak for AT&T but someone whose 
backbone is based on ATM technology can easily offer connections with 
any desired QoS. Typically they do it very wastefully because they have 
to. With their trunking they "break" ATM.

>
> they have an OC192 IP backbone, not ATM.    

When I hear "backbone" in this context I hear "buggy whip".

> If I'm mistaken, can you

Everything you say is absolutely true ... especially to the Cisco and 
Juniper strategists ... and it's absolutely misguided ... but oh so 
profitable.

> ATM is a legacy protocol on it's way out of the mainstream.

As long as the misinformation continues to be spread, I think I could 
agree with you. It's hard to find people who know much about ATM except 
for the misinformation they have received. It's not hard to find people 
getting shrill when you propose ATM solutions (or mock so-called cutting 
edge strategies that simply emulate ATM). There's big bucks being wasted 
and poor service being delivered as a result.

With all due respect,
Todd

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---

From: Paul J Zawada <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 15:36:12 -0500

> Label Switching? That's really a better name for it. ATM isn't 

ATM is not MPLS.  Certainly MPLS concepts came from ATM, but the two 
are very different.

> [Confusing discussion of the Merits of VoIP vs ATM ]

I won't argue that IP is the ideal transport mechanism for voice 
(because it's not), but my experience with ATM has been tenuous at best 
(as apparently it has for the rest of the network engineering 
community).  Since building reliable, high performance ATM networks for 
data transport has been difficult, few folks have had little desire to 
build converged networks out of ATM, regardless of how ideal ATM may be 
for voice transport.   Since some of the ATM concepts had merit, the IP 
community took the best (MPLS) and threw the rest of ATM away.

>
> (If you don't believe me, hang out on the NANOG mailing list awhile 
> and listen in to the
> discussion...) 

> I'll do that ... please give me a link.

North American Network Operators Group, the a group of folks who run 
the Internet in North America.   No mention of ATM anymore.  Zip. Nada. 
  The folks had painful lessons with ATM in the mid '90s and moved on... 
   http://www.nanog.org

> link to page not found. Again, I can't speak for AT&T but someone 
> whose backbone is based on ATM technology can easily offer connections 
> with any desired QoS. Typically they do it very wastefully because 
> they have to. With their trunking they "break" ATM.

The link still works for me; try http://tinyurl.com/ng3k instead...

> agree with you. It's hard to find people who know much about ATM 
> except for the misinformation they have received. It's not hard to 
> find people getting shrill when you propose ATM solutions (or mock 
> so-called cutting edge strategies that simply emulate ATM). There's 
> big bucks being wasted and poor service being delivered as a result.

Todd, as I pointed out to you in a previous message, I spent nearly 10 
years of my career building ATM networks and working in an ATM 
environment, so I'd liked to think I have an informed opinion based on 
some real experience and not "misinformation."   ATM didn't fall out of 
favor because of some great marketing conspiracy.  In fact, throughout 
the '90s there was nothing that got more marketing attention in the 
telecom world than ATM.  When network operators ran into operational 
and scalability problems with ATM, it fell into disfavor.    
Admittedly, many of the problems weren't related to the ATM standard 
itself but poor implementation; but if the standard is too complicated 
for vendors to implement, that needs to be considered as well.

Who knows, MPLS and VoIP may very well share the same fate...

--zawada

---

From: Todd Marshall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 16:17:56 -0500

Good reply... Thanks.
/Todd

Paul J Zawada wrote:

>     hardware. Would you be happier if they had called ATM
>     Multiprotocol Label Switching? That's really a better name for it.
>     ATM isn't asychronous at all.
>
>
> (because it's not), but my experience with ATM has been tenuous at 
> best (as apparently it has for the rest of the network engineering 
> build converged networks out of ATM, regardless of how ideal ATM may 
> be for voice transport. Since some of the ATM concepts had merit, the 
> IP community took the best (MPLS) and threw the rest of ATM away.
>
>
>     (If you don't believe me, hang out on the NANOG mailing list
>     awhile and listen in to the
>     discussion...) 
>
>
>     whose backbone is based on ATM technology can easily offer
>     connections with any desired QoS. Typically they do it very
>     wastefully because they have to. With their trunking they "break"
>     ATM.
>     As long as the misinformation continues to be spread, I think I
>     could agree with you. It's hard to find people who know much about
>     ATM except for the misinformation they have received. It's not
>     hard to find people getting shrill when you propose ATM solutions
>     (or mock so-called cutting edge strategies that simply emulate
>     ATM). There's big bucks being wasted and poor service being
>     delivered as a result.
>
>
> and scalability problems with ATM, it fell into disfavor. Admittedly, 
> many of the problems weren't related to the ATM standard itself but 
> poor implementation; but if the standard is too complicated for 
> vendors to implement, that needs to be considered as well.
>

---

From: Rick Parrish <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Sep 2003 17:02:48 -0500

Paul;

Todd is not blindly advocating ATM. If you go back and read his 
comments, he describes where the carriers went wrong with their 
implementation of ATM based networks (see the SVCs vs. PVCs issues 
discussed earlier). I suspect that was the cause of your misery during 
the 10 years you were involved in ATM network build out.

Did you - at any time in your 10 years as an ATM network swashbuckler - 
employ an ATM SVC based strategy for routing traffic? or was is all PVCs?

I think you and Todd are actually in agreement - ATM was bad news - 
perhaps because of the way it was used.

I think IPv4 is the *real* legacy protocol here but we've got lots of 
hardware, software, and mindshare that knows how to deal with it so 
we're stuck with it for a while longer.

(and the att.com link does not work for me either - I get a page-not-found)

You mention that the "IP community took the best (MPLS) and threw the 
rest of ATM away" which is a double-shame since the best parts of ATM 
were being ignored by the carriers from the start.

Regards,
Rick