November 29, 1999

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BellSouth Debuts Low-Priced Frame Relay Backup
Service charges for secondary data links only when they're used

By Bob Wallace

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ellSouth Corp. last week inaugurated a frame relay backup service that can connect customers from far-flung sites to a secondary data center. But unlike services offered by other carriers, BellSouth charges customers for the critical second set of links only when those links are used.

Carriers typically offer discounted frame relay backup links, but charge customers even when lines sit idle. BellSouth customers pay only a onetime $125 administration fee to have their backup links programmed into BellSouth's switches.

In addition to handling frame relay disruptions, BellSouth's Back-up Frame Relay Service can also be used when a customer's primary data site suffers a router problem, a computer system fails, or a data center is knocked out. Within 15 minutes of being notified of an outage, BellSouth will direct data over same-speed backup links to a secondary facility, which can use part of an access pipe or add a new one to take in the redirected traffic. Users pay standard frame relay rates when the service is used. That can be cheaper than ISDN if the outage lasts a long time and a large number of sites must be connected, says Joe Spencer, frame relay product manager at BellSouth.

"With the average mean time to repair a frame relay problem at four hours, some large companies have paid for backup frame relay connections to ensure against lost business, but many companies can't afford them or other backup services," says Tim Weiss, an analyst at TeleChoice, a consulting and research firm. "This is a low-cost alternative to backup links and the first service of its kind that I've seen."

Given that four-hour average, one BellSouth customer is impressed with the new service, which could avoid costly alternatives that require dedicated or dial-up links. "Trying to manage the different services would be absolute chaos in a disaster-recovery situation," says Frank Pfarr, communications coordinator at Main Street Banks Inc. in Covington, Ga., which uses a 15-site frame relay network. The bank is considering the BellSouth service as part of an IT makeover.

BellSouth has more than 6,000 frame relay customers; the average customer has 50 to 200 sites.

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