Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 18:21:15 -0400
From: Monty Solomon <monty@proponent.com>
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.telecom
Subject: Sprint Announces a Commercial Data Internet Service
Organization: TELECOM Digest
X-Submissions-To: telecom@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Administrivia-To: telecom-request@eecs.nwu.edu
X-Telecom-Digest: Volume 12, Issue 596, Message 1 of 13

Contacts:  Janis Langley, (O) 202-828-7427; (H) 703-533-3322
           Vince Hovanec, (O) 202-828-7423; (H) 202-387-1496
  

     SPRINT ANNOUNCES A COMMERCIAL DATA INTERNET SERVICE
  
	 WASHINGTON, D.C., July 22, 1992 -- Sprint today announced
commercial availability of SprintLink(sm), the first commercial
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)-based data
transmission service offered by a national long distance carrier.
SprintLink is a router-based network supporting the TCP/IP protocol
suite for data communications.

    	 SprintLink is part of the company's expanding service to the
business, scientific and research communities.  It complements
Sprint's frame relay and SprintNet(R) (X.25) services for computer and
local area network (LAN) interconnection.  SprintLink also provides
access to the Internet, a group of about 8,000 interconnected data
networks in more than 80 countries serving government, academic and
research organizations.

    	 "SprintLink demonstrates the benefits of technological
collaboration between government and industry," said Chris Rooney,
president, Government Systems Division.  "The extension of this new
service will generate commercial applications and will help American
business and government be more productive and creative."

    	 SprintLink grew from Sprint's expertise in TCP/IP and
international networking.  In early 1991, Sprint began providing and
managing a network to link the National Science Foundation's U.S.
computer communications network (NSFnet) with the French scientific
and research network, INRIA, at Sophia-Antipoles in southern France,
and the Scandinavian scientific and research network, NORDUNet, in
Stockholm.

    	 Sprint has since added to its NSFnet interconnections links
to Japan and the United Kingdom.  Additional connections are currently
planned to South Africa and to numerous Latin American and Caribbean
countries.

    	 In February, Sprint introduced SprintLink to government
agencies.  Since that introduction, SprintLink has attracted more than
a half-dozen major customers.

    	 During the next year, Sprint plans to add gateways to
Sprint's X.25 public data network, SprintNet, to allow SprintNet users
to access SprintLink, both nationally and internationally.  Sprint
will also connect its frame relay service to SprintLink thus allowing
Sprint's frame relay customers access to the global Internet and to
enable management of routers connected to Sprint's frame relay in an
integrated manner.  Sprint plans to offer SprintLink on a dial-up
basis.

    	 SprintLink is accessible via dedicated lines from all of the
company's 270-plus domestic points-of-presence.  Customers can access
the service at speeds ranging from 9.6 kbps to T1 (1.5 mbps).
Customers also can maximize use of a T1 line by combining multiple
voice and data services, including SprintLink, on that line, a feature
available only through Sprint.  SprintLink is priced at a flat monthly
rate according to port speed for each location.

    	 Sprint is a member of the board of directors of the
Commercial Internet Exchange (CIX) Association, a cooperative effort
among public data internetwork (PDI) service providers to promote the
fair, open and competitive operations of IP-based networking.  Other
members include General Atomics, which operates CERFnet; Performance
Systems International, Inc., which operates PSINet; and UUNET
Technologies, Inc., which operates AlterNET.

    	 Sprint is a diversified international telecommunications
company with $8.9 billion in annual revenues and the United States'
only nationwide all-digital, fiber-optic network.  Its divisions
provide global long distance voice, data and video products and
services, and local telephone services to more than 4 million
subscriber lines in 17 states.


[Moderator's Note: It is amazing and inspring to think about the short
history of Sprint over the past dozen years, going back to their early
days as the <S>outhern <P>acific <R>ailroad <I>nternal <N>etwork <T>elecom
department.  A true American success story.  PAT]