Sprint chief demonstrates new ION system in Vegas

Sprint's top executive was in Las Vegas this week to demonstrate the company's state-of-the-art communications system that should be available in Las Vegas by early next year.

Chief Executive Officer William Esrey showed delegates packing a convention hall for a computer trade show how Sprint's Integrated On-Demand Network (ION) can be used in a business or a home.

Following his keynote address, Esrey mingled on the trade show floor and took in the reaction from conventioneers attending the Networld + Interop event at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

At Sprint's booth, Esrey and a conventioneer stood in front of a video monitor while an artist on the other end of a teleconference call drew their images. When the artist finished, he put the drawing on a fax machine and transmitted the image to the convention center -- on the same phone line as the video conference call.

Sprint's trade-show demonstration and a speech by Esrey were designed to show the system's capabilities and much bandwidth would be available to a customer with ION.

In addition to local and long-distance voice service, ION will be capable of transmitting data, faxes, videoconferencing, video programming and high-speed Internet access simultaneously through a single phone connection.

Use would be paid for through a metering system that would monitor the amount of data passing through the lines. While Sprint is noncommittal about the cost, analysts have said it should run between $100 and $150 a month for most customers.

Because ION would consolidate lines and remove the need for special dedicated lines for faxes and Internet connections, Sprint says customers would save 15 to 25 percent on their total bill.

In addition to getting a device called an integrated services hub placed in a home or business, ION customers would get computer software to control the system. That software would display a screen Sprint officials call a dashboard that also would give customers the ability to turn on and shut off services like call waiting and three-way calling to their homes or businesses.

While ION was introduced last June and rolled out to some test markets in December, delivering the product to homes and businesses has been Sprint's focus in recent months.

Because the system is compatible with several different types of transporting equipment -- including wireless cable -- Sprint has been buying up wireless broadband companies in different parts of the country. Recently, Sprint acquired companies that would give it access to about 6.4 million homes in San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland, Calif.; Tampa, Fla.; Seattle and Spokane, Wash.; and Greenville, S.C.

Residents who want ION service in those areas will have to get a small satellite dish to connect the network to the home or business.

Sprint is able to buy wireless cable companies at good prices because the wireless cable industry -- which got its start by providing cable television service to homes in remote locations -- was flagging because of increased competition from large cable companies and satellite TV.

The industry got a boost in the mid-1990s when telephone companies began buying them. The Federal Communications Commission last fall approved the use of the technology for two-way wireless data transmission, allowing users to send and receive data over the airwaves.

In Las Vegas, the scenario is different because Sprint is the dominant local telephone exchange company. ION customers won't have to get a satellite dish to access the service as long as Sprint lines are available. However, it presents a new set of issues for the company, said Marty Kaplan, chief technology officer for Sprint.

While the accessibility of Sprint lines to Las Vegas customers assures that the city will be near the front of the line for the ION roll-out, Kaplan said the company is reviewing all of its service agreements with competitors in the Las Vegas market.

Kaplan said the company wants to be sure that it doesn't have a legal responsibility to make some of its proprietary information on ION available to competitors under existing agreements. Sprint has line leasing agreements with dozens of small local phone companies. The small companies lease access to a large number of lines at a bulk rate, then sell them back to residents and businesses at a profit.

Sprint's biggest rival in Las Vegas, MGC Communications Inc., has already begun rolling out its own high-speed data transmission system using a different type of technology that can move voice, data and Internet access over traditional copper wires.

A local representative of Sprint said ION is expected to be available to Las Vegas customers early next year.

In addition to providing the simultaneous service, ION is 100 times faster for data transmission than over traditional dial-up lines.

A service that will be slower than ION but faster than existing systems is Sprint's digital subscriber line (DSL) service, which should be available to most customers by the end of the year, said Rob McCoy, a Las Vegas spokesman for the company.

McCoy said DSL would be about 29 times faster than traditional dial-up service. Sprint will offer DSL and ION to local customers and will differentiate them by price. McCoy said it hasn't been determined how much the two services will cost locally.

Esrey said ION is part of Sprint's plan to transform the company from strictly a data and voice transmission company to a content provider as well. He said the company, which has tested the system by providing it to the Hallmark Card Co., Yellow Freight and Ernst & Young, hopes companies that will use ION will develop new applications that will increase commerce over the Internet.

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