What does FRS stand for?

With one in four companies experiencing computer system down time, BellSouth is launching Back-up Frame Relay Service to help businesses protect against potentially crippling host computer disruptions.

Many service providers have built large-scale data networks to deliver frame relay services and have enjoyed a period of dramatic growth in service revenues.

Even more importantly, however, the proliferation of international frame relay services is giving financial institutions a way to tightly integrate overseas offices into a common business model - a desirable strategic move that has been difficult to achieve using past technology.

As for wide area networks, the unexpected success of frame relay service has forestalled ATM from its anticipated dominance of corporate backbones.

For example, a corporate head office could increase its flexibility by using high-speed Ethernet access at 200 Mb/s - with the ability to grow in segments as small as 1 Mb/s - but its branch office access and customer premises equipment would remain unchanged, using the same reliable frame relay service at existing access rates without the expense and risk associated with a network migration.

New managed frame relay services from New Edge Networks provide small and midsize business customers a complete end-to-end network management solution, including Web-based usage reports, customer premises equipment, installation, and around-the-clock maintenance through a single source.

Being demonstrated at the CeBIT trade show opening tomorrow in Germany, the TMX 880's distinctive internetworking capabilities satisfy customer needs for a unified backbone that can expand and scale profitable asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and frame relay services today and prepare for the emerging demand for Internet protocol (IP) services.

The Frame Relay capabilities WaveSmith is demonstrating with their PFM enables both traditional and next-generation Frame Relay service providers to cut capital and operational expenditures and potentially pass these savings on to customers," said Rosemary Cochran, principal of Vertical Systems Group.