BT's ATM Man trials lag behind, say rivals

BT has been criticised in its efforts to introduce an ATM metropolitan area network (Man) service by vendors who beat it to offering such a service.

The company, which will end trials of its Cellstream national ATM service at the end of April, plans to begin trials of a Man service, Cellstream Metro, mid-year.

Commercial introduction is due in September this year.

The service will be in addition to BT's national service, however Mercury introduced a combined ATM service at the beginning of this year.

"I'm surprised," said Lance Spencer, manager of data and customised services at Mercury. "We're trying to make the communications as simple as possible, and having one service is part of that," he said.

"I've got to believe that there is a great strategy behind it," said another competing Man source, "but I'll be blowed if I can see it."

Although the company has yet to make a decision on geographical rollout, it will centre on cities where the demand is highest, according to Steven Carter, commercial and marketing manager for Cellstream at BT.

"The national service is designed for people who want to go long distances. Some want shorter distances and will have different traffic profiles. It's tweaking the service to suit their needs," he said.

Though the bandwidth range will be the same, Carter said he expected users to "fill up the pipes a bit more. In terms of service, features appear the same to customers. We are still thinking about how we present this to the market," said Carter.

BT is currently out to tender for a contract to double its ATM network infrastructure. "My feeling is that what it is trying to do is go for the niche networks," revealed one source.

"Cellstream is much like a leased line network: it's not the ATM dream, but with a Man it can afford to do things it wouldn't dare do nationally," the source added.