Carriers are low-key with their announcements

Telecom giants AT&T Corp. and WorldCom Inc. each unfurled IP VPN announcements at the abbreviated NetWorld+Interop show in Atlanta, while carrier Sprint Corp. announced a new method of manipulating fiber resources.

Though overshadowed by the terrorist attacks, AT&T with little fanfare released its IP VPN service Wednesday. WorldCom had planned to debut a similar service Tuesday.

Both AT&T and WorldCom billed the new services as a way for enterprises to enact better traffic prioritization over VPNs.

Clinton, Mississippi-based WorldCom's Private IP Premium Policy service was designed to make traffic flow more predictable by letting network managers label applications such as video or voice transmissions as "first class," while relegating e-mail and Web surfing as lower priorities.

Similarly, AT&T in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, unveiled new service classes for its private IP VPNs. Like WorldCom's offering, AT&T's service is touted as a way to let network managers tag VOIP (voice over IP) and other applications to higher traffic-priority classes.

Both companies based the services on MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) technology, while WorldCom also said that its CoS (class of service) capability relies on an IETF standard called DiffServ IP.

AT&T announced that it will bundle in it its recently debuted Managed Router Service for IPFR (IP-enabled Frame Relay).

Separately, Kansas City, Missouri-based Sprint had planned to use N+I to showcase its new DWS (Direct Wave Services), a method of transmitting data over different wavelengths of light within the same fiber.

Based on DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) technology, DWS is said to support bandwidth intense applications such as mainframe connections, while giving enterprises options to lease or install their own dark fiber.

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