Why Pay More for a Tier 1 Provider?

Frame Relay is now available as a mature service. International as well as domestic providers include Frame Relay service in their portfolio of enterprise network offerings. These services, however, vary from carrier to carrier and their quality is only as good as the carrier's network and platform capabilities. The educated Frame Relay customer will understand and consider some of the issues important to Frame Relay and its provisioning before committing to a particular provider.

Customers can understand how carrier's implementations differ by comparing them and their services against these important characteristics. Customers can make more informed decisions concerning the value received by examining carriers' Frame Relay services in light of these measures:

Carrier Architecture

Customers planning to implement Frame Relay service should consider the infrastructure, capability and architecture of the prospective service provider to determine if that provider has the potential to truly meet their total system and performance needs. The carrier's architecture should offer critical depth, such as the ability to support a wide range of service interfaces. Another key element of the carrier architecture, is the method used to control network congestion.

Customer Network Management-- Electronic Servicing

One major distinction in Frame Relay service is the ability for the user to manage the frame relay network on an ad-hoc and as needed basis. In order for this to work effectively, the carrier must provide two important components: regular detailed reporting of traffic by PVC and the means to electronically effect changes in the PVC and port configurations.

Web Based Interface

As the Internet becomes more pervasive and used for virtually all inter-company traffic, it makes sense that customer network management systems become available within the context of a standardized browser interface. The Internet allows users access to regular reports including:

• Port and PVC utilization.
• Discards, CRC error and congestion notifications.
• Exception reports with definable thresholds allowing rapid identification of problem areas.

Electronic Ordering enables customers to order new frame relay ports and PVCs and to upgrade service speeds (CIRs). This provides direct management of network configurations.

Electronic trouble ticketing provides web based reporting for circuit, port and PVC troubles and allows timing tracking of problem resolution.

A Clean, Seamless Evolution

The carrier should be prepared to offer compatibility and interoperability between Frame Relay and other services such as ATM. The best Frame Relay service providers will integrate their Frame Relay service with other transport options and additional services into seamless offerings that meet critical business needs. They will offer Frame Relay as part of a complete range of transport options for LAN interconnect solutions, in which the transport services (e.g., Frame Relay, dedicated private line, fractional T1/E1 and 45 Mbps) are combined in an integrated solution. The carrier should have a strategy for integrating Frame Relay with ATM in a hybrid mix of services specifically designed to meet the needs of the customer. Since the Frame Relay specification prescribes only the access technology, network providers are free to use frame or cell-based backbones in their networks. Those that use cell-based backbones are positioned for expansion in scale and scope, and are likely to be better equipped to grow in the long term.

An Array of Access Options

Customers' needs vary, and some implementations are optimized using a mix of switched and dedicated access lines at different rates. Carriers should offer dedicated access at popular rates (e.g., 56/64 Kbps, fractional T1, 1.5 Mbps), as well as dial access. ISDN is another increasingly important way to access Frame Relay service. The Frame Relay service should support a wide range of interface rates (from a few kilobits per second to megabits per second), and protection in case of local access channel or CPE failure.

Around the Clock Network Surveillance and Monitoring

Maintaining high availability and quality service requires continuous network surveillance. This includes continuous remote monitoring of all the physical elements of the network, immediate response to troubles or questions, and superior problem isolation and repair capability.

Disaster Recovery

Some Frame Relay Service Carriers provide Disaster Recovery to redirect PVCs to existing alternate access channels in case of local access channel or CPE failures. This assures the Frame Relay customer of uninterrupted communications between an enterprise's computer center and remote LAN and distributed environments. Other disaster recovery options provide backup PVCs or growable PVCs to alternate data sites or disaster recovery vendors in the event of a site disaster. Rapid service restoral is possible by temporarily redirecting the PVCs or expanding the CIR of an existing PVC to an alternate data site to handle the networking needs in the event of a disaster.

Real-Time Access to Network Operations

Many customers may not want to be involved in the day-to-day operation of their networks. Instead they look to carriers to handle the operational details for them. A carrier who excels at this monitors all aspects of network performance and offers customer support of the CPE, including network design, configuration support, remote monitoring, and trouble referral and tracking. In addition, the carrier offers the user the means to monitor their own private virtual networks for status and performance. They provide real-time access to information using SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol), including graphics based network management work stations. The carrier also provides customers with a single point of contact to their network operations center for coordinated problem resolution.

End-to-End Engineering and Planning

There is more to provisioning Frame Relay service than simply securing the access connections. Customers may prefer to outsource some or all of the work associated with implementing a Frame Relay network. If so, the following additional services that can be provided by carriers are likely to meet the customer's needs:

• Provision and installation of the cabling to connect the CPE to the network.
• Design and configuration of required customer premises equipment (CPE) to ensure optimum use of the network.
• Complete installation of both the network and customer premises equipment, including routers and bridges.
• Provisioning and installation of the CPE.

Internet Access Services

Carriers should offer Internet services, including:

• Internet connectivity using PVCs.
• Internet directory services.

On-Site Support for Problem Resolution

The duration of failures depends on the carrier's ability to be on-site anywhere within a few hours. Good on-site service should be structured to provide the customer with optional levels of support, depending on their priorities.

Predictive Failure Modeling and Preventative Maintenance

While 100% fail safe service is too costly to be practical, it can be approached using continuous fault monitoring from multiple network operations centers (NOCs). These centers use remote monitoring systems and predictive modeling of service degradation to schedule preventative maintenance and perform capacity management. Trended analysis reports of performance over time can quite accurately predict when parameters are nearing service affecting thresholds, and when failures are likely to occur.

Robust, Scalable Backbone Network

• The carrier should be able to smoothly grow and reliably protect the customer's service through:
• Fully-protected backbone network facilities and switches.
• Evolution path for higher access speeds as customer demands increase.
• Robust design and engineering practices to ensure sufficient capacity.
• Scalable, easily expanded backbone networks to handle growth in demand.
• Interworking services.

Support Sustained Data Bursts

Frame relay service should successfully and consistently support sustained bursts of data at levels exceeding the customer's committed information rate. Carriers differ markedly in their ability to support sustained bursts. There should be fair, proportional allocation of spare bandwidth to ensure that one customer's traffic doesn't affect the performance of other traffic.

Seamless Interworking and Integration of Multiple Services

While customers may choose to perform their own access coordination and network management, they should have the option of allowing the carrier to do that for them. Carriers should offer:

• Access coordination between Local Exchange Carriers (LECs) and alternate access providers.
• Full access to extensive network management capabilities.
• Integration with existing and new services, including support for protocol conversion.
• Seamless integration of all access, carrier network and CPE into a unified, single network.

Support for Servicing and Network Expansion

• Coordination of the addition of new locations into the enterprise network and reconfiguring the logical router configurations in response to changes in the LAN configuration.
• Monitoring of the network continuously to ensure optimum use of resources.

Pricing Flexibility

A properly designed pricing structure offers flexibility to the enterprise network user. In particular, carriers offer:

• A variety of price plans and separate charges for ports and PVCs.
• Long-term service agreement incentive pricing plans.
• Volume discounts.