Andrew Hastings <abh@cs.cmu.edu> (04/25/91)
[Copied from Cursor, Academic Services Newsletter, Carnegie Mellon University, April, 1991. What seems odd to me is that the rates charged back to departments appear to have been decreased across the board, although the article implies that the rates charged by Sprint are lower only on calls to participating institutions. Can anyone give more details about how Sprint's VPN really works? Andrew Hastings abh@cs.cmu.edu 412/268-8734] From: Mary L. Pretz-Lawson, Telecommunications Telecommunications recently installed US Sprint as Carnegie Mellon's main long distance carrier on all of our administrative lines. (Student lines still use AT&T.) Sprint is now our first choice, lowest cost carrier for all of our outgoing domestic US traffic. In addition, we are now part of a Sprint virtual private network (VPN) of universities that includes Stanford, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Georgia Tech, and others. A virtual network is a long distance service provided through public switched facilities, but configured via software to resemble a private network. Our university VPN defines all of the participating institutions as a single "corporate" network. The result is very competitive long distance rates by capitalizing on the large volume of inter-university calling. Accordingly, we decreased the university long distance rates by about 15 percent effective February 1. Business day rates are now $.20 per minute and non-business day rates decreased to $.14 per minute for interstate calling. Benefits of the Sprint VPN go beyond our long distance voice telephone calls. Since Sprint's network is based on 100% digital, fiber optic technology, it can handle voice, data, and video simultaneously. Specifically, the VPN 56 feature can transmit data at 56 kilobits per second and extend applications such as local area nework (LAN) connectivity to participating universities. If your department needs switched data service or private lines to other educational institutions, you may be able to reduce your costs by moving to this VPN service for data, too. Contact Telecommunications (extension XXXX, yyy@zzz) to find out if schools you connect to for data are part of the VPN network. The change to US Sprint should have been transparent to you. However, if you experience any difficulty with making long distance calls, please notify the Carnegie Mellon operator by dialing "0." Give the operator the time the call was made, the calling and called numbers, and the nature of the problem. The sooner you provide this information to use, the better able we are to trace the problem.
johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us (John R. Levine) (04/26/91)
In article <telecom11.304.4@eecs.nwu.edu> you write: > The result is very competitive long distance rates by capitalizing on > the large volume of inter-university calling. Business day rates > are now $.20 per minute and non-business day rates decreased to $.14 per > minute for interstate calling. That's a strange rate. I have regular old residential Sprint Plus with a monthly call volume of about $100 and my interstate evening rate is $0.112 per minute for coast-to-coast calls, less for shorter distances. Perhaps CMU is marking up Sprint's rates a teensy bit. I'd expect VPN rates to be less than regular MTS, otherwise the VPN is pointless. Regards, John Levine, johnl@iecc.cambridge.ma.us, {spdcc|ima|world}!iecc!johnl