BT rings changes for Frame Relay

Price cuts and published tariffs may undermine SMDS services.

BT is poised to push Frame Relay by slashing the prices of its service and publishing its tariffs for the first time.

The company denies this move threatens its SMDS (switched multimegabit data service) technology which it has previously championed over Frame Relay.

"We do not believe that SMDS is a dying technology," said Robin Wiles, marketing communications manager for BT's data transport services. "In fact it is very much an ongoing technology, why else would we have launched a new 0.2Mbps (200Kbps) service in January."

Following Oftel's white paper Competition and the Telecoms Market, BT was required to change its Frame Relay from a value added service to a costed service. The result is that BT has announced its first set of annual Frame Relay charges for its FrameStream service. Prices range from #1,500 for 64Kbps access to #17,500 for 2,048Kbps. Connection charges are an extra #1,500 for 64Kbps, and #3,000 for 128Kbps to 2,048Kbps for customers with "suitable line plant", or between #1,500 and #6,295 for those without.

These new pricings mean FrameStream could potentially clash with BT's existing tariffed broadband data offering, SMDS. This service is offered at between 0.2 and 25Mbps and at rental charges of #6,000 and #36,000 respectively. Connection charges range from #6,000 to #33,000.

Analysts believe BT is keen to kill off SMDS. "In the next two years BT will de-emphasise SMDS," said Neil Rickard, research director at the Gartner Group. "It's a dead technology, and users are locked in."

Additional reporting by Linda Leung, VNU Newswire.