Frame Relay?

[frizzlefry]

Are there any companies that still use Frame Relay? Just got an offer from Sprint Biz department for getting frame relay plus free cisco 2620 router and free 1 year CPE maintenance.

Catch is it requires getting a T1 port. 2-3 year contract. And pay for install. But just wondering if anyone still is using frame relay and how much it costs.

 

[spidey07]

Frizzle,

Just about EVERY company uses frame-relay. It it relatively cheap and high performance. How much it costs depends on the size of the frame-relay ports and local access charges. from $200 per port to over $1000. This pricing also depends on your negotiation skills.

hope this helps!
spiderman

 

[ScottMac]

You should check on what Committed Information Rate (CIR) they're offering with that. They might be offering a T1 Physical, with a 256 or 512K CIR some providers will offer zero CIR circuits as well. CIR is the threshold of your usual peak throughput. Many companies will start charging for exceeding the CIR beyond the contracted threshold, many will set the "Discard Enable" flag for data that exceeds the CIR...it doesn't mean that it will be thrown away...but it MAY be thrown away.

The CIR number is not an absolute "instant" measurement, it's usually calculated and averaged over some specified period of time (there's a sustained rate, peak rate, and maximum burst parameter).

FR is usually a pretty good deal compared to dedicated p-p circuits.

Good Luck

Scott

 

[spidey07]

probably zero CIR for this deal.

 

[CTR]

Yeah I remember when Sprint approached me with a zero-CIR deal a few years back...it was okay at the time, but their FR cloud is quite a bit more congested now.