WorldCom beefs up dial-up IP services

CLINTON, MISS. - The battering WorldCom is absorbing on Wall Street isn't stopping the carrier from beefing up existing products. Witness the recent offering of its Internet Dial Corporate and IP VPN Remote Services that the company says give customers more predictable performance and expanded geographic reach.

WorldCom's enhancements include a new Access Manager client, Internet Dial Analysis tool, Enterprise Services Manager software, the expansion of its global dial-up network, and stronger performance guarantees for dial-up IP users.

WorldCom's new Access Manager client software lets dial-up, DSL, ISDN or cable modem remote users connect to WorldCom's IP network using a unified interface, eliminating the need for multiple clients. The carrier says it will add very small aperture terminal (VSAT) and wireless network support to the client software by year-end.

Later this year WorldCom also plans to increase security support for its remote users by adding a personal firewall to its Access Manager client.

Access Manager also is integrated with WorldCom's new Internet Dial Analysis tool, which is based on Visual Networks software. Network managers access the tool on WorldCom's network. The analysis tool lets customers gather performance and usage information on remote users by communicating with Access Manager. Customers can use this information to better plan for and even reduce remote-access costs by establishing remote-access policies, such as requesting that users stay connected for one hour or less, says Brownlee Thomas, an analyst at Giga Information Group.

The tool is available to customers for an additional fee of about 5% above WorldCom's standard service rate, says Ralph Montfort, director of remote services at WorldCom.

The carrier also has expanded its global dial-up support for its Internet Dial Corporate and IP VPN Remote Services to 84 countries. Internet Dial customers can also dial-up from China, but WorldCom cannot support its IP VPN customers in China because of encryption technology restrictions in that country.

WorldCom has on-net dial points of presence in 42 countries. The remaining 43 countries are reached through GRIC Communications' network. WorldCom teams with GRIC to offer users in-country local Internet dial-up support i areas where it does not have its own points of presence.

"These are significant enhancements because it increases the global reach for customers and offers network administrators better control over their remote users," Thomas says.

The carrier also announced its Enterprise Services Manager, which lets network administrators set up user and group policies for remote workers. Administrators can block costly toll-free access numbers for groups or all users. The Enterprise Services Manager also lets administrators set up timers that disconnect users after a certain number of minutes of inactivity.

WorldCom also beefed up its service-level agreements (SLA) with stronger latency and packet-delivery guarantees. Previously, WorldCom guaranteed that latency would not exceed 65 msec in the U.S. and Europe and upgraded that guarantee to 55 msec.

Sprint also offers guarantees that latency will not exceed 55 msec in the U.S., but offers a better guarantee in Europe. Sprint's SLA says latency will not exceed 45 msec in Europe. Sprint's packet-delivery guarantee is also slightly stronger, at 99.7% in the U.S. and Europe.

Customers also can select a stronger SLA that WorldCom calls its Internet Dial Corporate Gold. This SLA offers stronger network availability and logon success rates. WorldCom can support these enhanced SLAs by offering Gold customers access to additional dial-up numbers and POPs, Thomas says. The Gold SLA costs about 5% more per month.

While WorldCom moves forward with service enhancements the company is suffering serious financial setbacks After announcing lower-than-expected revenue projections for this year, WorldCom watched its stock tumble to less than $4 last week.