Everything old is new again ...

When you hear "innovative and new," does private line leap to your mind? Probably not, though private lines have been quietly re-invented over the past few years and continue to evolve. Thanks to the latest fiber-optic backbones, carriers have gained instantaneous failover, improved provisioning and much lower cost per megabit-per-second. And improved interfaces between carriers have led to more efficient provisioning and better service assurance compared to just a few years ago.

Take a look at some of today's capabilities offered by the following carriers:

Provisioning guarantees. Installation and provisioning guarantees are now commonly given in days, rather than months. Among the most ambitious provisioning guarantees is Level 3's, which guarantees service installation for private lines within 10 days. In the near future, some service providers plan to offer self-service with nearly instantaneous provisioning in some situations.

Management and Reconfiguration via Web. WorldCom is one of the first service providers to offer enterprises the ability to manage, control and reconfigure DS-0 and DS-1 circuits using an Internet browser. Web DRS service reduces WorldCom's operational expenses while providing the customer control over its network, something larger enterprises covet. Several service providers consolidate all voice and data services onto one customer bill and these are beginning to appear in Web form as well.

Fixed Price Bundles. Broadwing and France Telecom are offering fixed-price bundled services. Broadwing's Multiconnect Private Line provides for a fixed price per month for groups of 14 or 28 T-1s used anywhere in U.S. France Telecom bundles cities in a program called CapaCity. Customers commit to connect a certain number of cities and bandwidth, but can change the cities in the plan as needed and still pay the same price.

Zone Pricing. One thing in the experimental stage is zone pricing as an alternative to strictly mileage-based pricing. Zone pricing can help service providers sell capacity on excess-capacity routes at lower prices while charging more for highly sought-after routes. Zone pricing can also reflect the different absolute costs associated with, for instance, provisioning a private line in the congested East Coast corridor versus less expensive routes across the States.

Route Diversity. Diversity services, where the service provider guarantees a diversity of route throughout the network, is also being discussed. At this point, enterprises may contract with two or more service providers in an attempt to create diverse routes - and they still have no guarantee that the routes, in fact, are diverse from end to end. Diversity services allow a tighter measure of account control along with providing highly critical applications an extra measure of security.

While there's something to be said for "if it ain't broke, don't fix it," there's also no reason to stay stuck in the past. Private lines are a mainstay of telecom portfolios. By spiffing them up a bit, carriers can help maintain (or recover) margin while also gaining some account control and differentiation in a tough market.

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