[ih] Bell System packet networks

[Andrew G. Malis]

Frame Relay was a huge success in its time, with $billions of revenue for
the service providers. Thanks to multiplexing and stat mux capabilities, it
was a much less expensive alternative to leased lines for intra-enterprise
VPNs in either a star or mesh configuration. It was also very popular for
ISP last mile connectivity to the premises. I wrote the RFC (2427) that
enabled both IP packet and Ethernet frame transport (and other protocols as
well) within Frame Relay frames. In time it was mostly replaced by carrier
Ethernet for both applications.

Cheers,
Andy


On Mon, Apr 27, 2026 at 7:10 PM John Day via Internet-history <
internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:

> I always considered X.25, Frame Relay, ATM, etc. as phone company attempts
> to do something like packet switching without really embracing it. They
> were all a bit kludgy. Although, I have to admit the target use was very
> different. Any of them could have been a cleaner design.
>
> John
>
> > On Apr 27, 2026, at 18:29, John Gilmore <gnu at toad.com> wrote:
> >
> > Leonard Kleinrock wrote:
> >> Finally, in 1983 (14 years after the launch of the Arpanet that
> >> demonstrated the viability of packet switching), AT&T finally launched
> >> their premier data networking service called Net 1000! However, it was
> >> too little too late and worse, it offered it as a full service
> >> offering that not only provided data transmission, but also offered
> >> storage and computation to the Fortune 500 companies, two things that
> >> those companies certainly not need - they closed down Net 1000 in 1984
> >> at a loss in the range of $1 billion!
> >
> > How does Frame Relay fit into the picture?
> >
> > It was from Bell and it moved packets.  But mostly on "permanent virtual
> > circuits" that were set up once and never changeable.  Wikipedia says it
> > was a simplified version of X.25, and was deployed in the 1990s.  Our
> > early ISP, The Little Garden, offered service over 56k Frame Relay in
> > late 1994, as an alternative to dialups or leased lines.  It had the
> > advantage of being flat-rate no matter where in the Pacific Bell LATA
> > the customer was -- anywhere between Monterey and the Oregon border.
> >
> >       John
> >
>
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