New Network: Bell Atlantic Launches Next-Generation Long Distance Data Network to Address $80 Billion Market for 21st Century Communications. Lucent to Supply Equipment and Operating Systems. (Lucent Technologies) (Company Business and Marketing)

Full Text: COPYRIGHT 1998 EDGE Publishing

Bell Atlantic will begin construction of a next-generation, data packet-switched, long distance network in July, the company said Tuesday. The new network will provide the regional platform for data communications for customers across the Bell Atlantic region, the nation and the world.

Bell Atlantic has selected Lucent Technologies under a five-year contract, valued at more than $200 million, to supply equipment and software for the East Coast network components and to integrate several of the new network's systems. Other vendors to be named later will supply additional elements for the network. Deployment of services over this network depends on regulatory approvals, the first of which are expected to come in the next six months.

The market for data services in the region is expected to double and possibly triple to $80-90 billion a year, by the year 2003. The new network will support services such as virtual private networks, work-at-home and audio and video streaming over the World Wide Web. This network will provide high-quality, high-speed transport services; platform services such as Internet access and backbone transport; and a complete range of value-added applications, such as Intranet/Extranets, electronic commerce and video conferencing.

"Bell Atlantic will be able to provide state-of-the-art solutions for the data communications needs of its major customers headquartered in the northeast and mid-Atlantic states and the hundreds of colleges and universities in the region with this network," said Joe Farina, president and chief executive officer- Bell Atlantic Data Solutions Group. "Our new network will be ready to serve the expanding realm of electronic commerce across the 'Net' and the many media-rich Internet applications of the future." "The East Coast of the United States is the richest and most rapidly growing data market in the world," said Farina. "Bell Atlantic is determined to stay ahead of our customers as their data needs expand and develop regionally, nationally and globally."

The company conservatively estimates it will generate more than $3 billion a year in new revenue by 2003 from long distance transport services alone over the in-region network. This is over and above the multi-billion dollar revenue stream it generates today with metropolitan-area data services. Value-added platform and application services are expected to generate an additional $2 to $3 billion in yearly revenues.

The initial deployment will connect hubs in Boston, New York, Philadelphia and the Washington, DC., area. Delivery of services over the new network could begin as early as Jan. 1, 1999. Data routing hubs will be extended to serve all markets in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic region during the course of the next two years. These markets include Providence, R.I. and other cities in the New England states, cities and towns in upstate New York such as Albany, and mid-Atlantic cities such as Pittsburgh, Richmond, Va., and Charleston, W. Va.

The network will employ the latest advances in data technology and will deliver the highest quality service for a complete range of applications. Bell Atlantic will extend the capabilities of this network to other cities across the United States and around the world to provide complete, end-to-end solutions to national and global customers.

Bell Atlantic's new network will incorporate advanced ATM (asynchronous transfer mode), SONET (synchronous optical network) and WDM (wave division multiplexing) technologies. Lucent's OneVision software will provide advanced administrative and operations support systems capabilities that will enable rapid service provisioning and enhanced network management. The use of this technology means the network will have enough flexibility to deliver bandwidth on demand, enabling Bell Atlantic to offer affordable, tailored data services to meet a customer's most exacting requirements.

The services that will be supported include access to the global Internet, credit-card authorization, video conferencing and multimedia-rich, Web-based medical, financial and electronic commerce applications.

"Bell Atlantic's long-distance, ATM-based network will provide a solid platform for advanced data services, including managed Internet Protocol networks," said Stu Verge, president-Bell Atlantic Global Networks, Inc., which is the company in the Bell Atlantic Data Solutions Group that was created to build and manage Bell Atlantic's long distance data network. It also is the unit that signed the contracts with Lucent Technologies.

The network will provide a logical addition to the company's current suite of high-quality, local data services, enabling Bell Atlantic to provide complete end-to-end solutions that connect customer locations between cities and states.

"This data network complements the high speed, local loop services the Bell Atlantic telephone companies will be rolling out in 1998 and 1999 using asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) technology," said Verge. "We anticipate many of the 2,000 Internet service providers with East Coast customers will be very interested in using capabilities provided by Bell Atlantic's new data network, just as they have been interested in high speed ADSL." In fact, Bell Atlantic was the first regional Bell carrier to file with Federal regulators for long distance data relief under section 706 of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, which would enable the company to smoothly integrate its ADSL services and broadband metropolitan area networks with its next-generation data network.

The Bell Atlantic telephone companies will begin commercial deployment of ADSL services later this year. These ADSL services will enable consumers to access the Internet at speeds up to 250 times faster than today's most commonly used modems. In 1999, the Bell Atlantic companies will deploy ADSL services based on universal specifications.

Bell Atlantic's data network will carry Internet backbone traffic along with other traffic. The expanded capacity and superior performance of Bell Atlantic's network will result in improved performance for consumers purchasing Bell Atlantic's high speed data services, and Internet users will begin to experience the high quality, reliability and availability characteristics they associate with phone calls over the public voice network.

Bell Atlantic's new ATM/SONET data network also will be capable of emulating a circuit switched, voice network over a platform built and designed for data. Integrating voice capabilities adds to the cost-effectiveness of the network, and long distance voice services can be joint marketed with services from Bell Atlantic's local telephone companies. But delivery of voice services over the data network is contingent on gaining the necessary regulatory approvals for Bell Atlantic to enter the long distance voice business.

"For decades people have come to rely on and expect reliable high- quality voice service, but there is a revolution taking place in networking, and now people need that same quality of service for data," said Carly Fiorina, president of Lucent's Global Service Provider business. "That is exactly what Bell Atlantic is setting out to provide for them. The people of Lucent are proud that Bell Atlantic, long a leader in offering advanced communications services, selected them to help transform this visionary concept into the next-generation network."

Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, New Jersey, designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Labs is the research and development arm for the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit the company's Web site at www.lucent.com.

Bell Atlantic -- formed through the merger of Bell Atlantic and NYNEX -- is at the forefront of the new communications and information industry. With more than 41 million telephone access lines and 6.7 million wireless customers worldwide, Bell Atlantic companies are premier providers of advanced wireline voice and data services, market leaders in wireless services and the world's largest publishers of directory information. Bell Atlantic companies are also among the world's largest investors in high- growth global communications markets, with operations and investments in 22 countries.

Fact Sheet For Bell Atlantic Long Distance Data Network Network Elements and Vendors: ATM - vendor still to be named. o ATM will provide communications fabric to drive scale economies and deliver quality of service capabilities over backbone network.

SONET/WDM Transport - Lucent Technologies o SONET provides highly resilient transmission capability. Use of WDM (wave division multiplexing) will enable capacity expansion to keep pace with demand growth.

Internet Protocol Packet Router - vendor still to be named. o Router will collect, transport and manage IP-based services and applications.

Digital Voice Switch (5ESS) - Lucent Technologies o Switch will collect circuit-switched voice signals for translation into ATM- based data packets. Also will provide full interconnection with national voice signaling network.

Systems - Lucent Technologies - will ensure software systems interoperate

1) Operations - provides functions such as ability to monitor traffic flow over network.

2) Administration - provides database capabilities, such as inventory of circuit assignments.

3) Maintenance - provides functions such as ability to spot and correct network problems before they affect customers.

4) Provisioning - provides functions such as ability to assign circuits to customers.

Network Architecture: SONET Rings o self-healing, high capacity.

Interconnection with other networks o will have "peering" and other interconnection relationships at appropriate locations.

Initial four hubs: 1) Boston 2) New York 3) Philadelphia 4) Washington, D.C. area (Arlington, Va.) Timeline for Deployment of Services: Phase I o Deploy basic ATM/SONET network to support services such as Internet backbone transmission and voice -- 1Q/99 (contingent on appropriate regulatory relief) Phase II o Expand hubs to additional cities to deploy services -- 2Q/99 (contingent on regulatory relief) Phase III o Add voice and data service enhancements -- 3Q/99 (contingent on regulatory relief)