frame relay medieval technology ?

pinkiaiii

Starting last semester and its frame relay,now i sort of dont get all the materials go around serial connections x.25 t1 which is basically speeds that most isps provided 10-15 years ago,then theres concept of private lines and public-while i get idea that data center would be using private isp line to support massive bandwidth,but from what i gather so far theres little commands for business to implement frame relay and basically besides setting encapsulation all work is done by ISP end.

Going further whats even the point in paying cash to isps,when nowadays theres services like cloud,even getting few public ips and setting your own server or connection to other branches seems like total no brainer given the cost and speeds one could get.

Correct me if wrong but even if needing direct lan connectivity nowadays its basically application layer on osi model,where most software would be compatible with using some cloud service to exchange or store data or using internal server with nat and acls -so what am i missing in this concept since reading about 1.5mbs lines is a bit cringe worthy,given todays broadband speeds,and options available at fraction of a cost.

UncleB

pinkiaiii wrote: »

so what am i missing in this concept since reading about 1.5mbs lines is a bit cringe worthy,given todays broadband speeds,and options available at fraction of a cost.

What you are missing is that there are a lot of companies and individuals in rural locations (or even urban connections with a poor infrastructure) that cannot achieve even 1Mbsp connectivity. Given the cost of upgrading the infrastructure to these locations, it is not going to be upgraded anytime soon, so in the real world you need to support such customers who remain on the distant end of an old, wobbly copper cable.

thanks
Iain

pinkiaiii

well i know that stuff like ATMs,credit cards,POS do need internet connection and they can operate fine even at 56kb/s ,but hardly imagine such business would be needing frame relay to connect to another site beyond its premises.

That aside find it a bit strange since asked lecturer,and way he explained even if getting frame relay basically 99% will be done by isp and contractors-sorta included in the cost.did the lab in its sorta cool to see two remote networks but again dont think two sites that would have few mbs line would be in positions where it would be viable cost to do it rather then using alternatives.

clarson

fiber channel cable was invented 20 years before frame relay was standardized. Frame relay has come and gone. And, only now 40 years after it's invention are people getting fiber to their home (20 years after businesses started using it). Different technologies have different usages and costs. And, alot of times understanding how things were done, makes learning new technologies easier.
I'm not an expert on knowing what a person working in the networking field needs to know. But, if employers didn't think the cisco certs were relevant, they wouldn't care if anyone had them.

pinkiaiii

not sure of exact fiber date,but id imagine it was used +10yrs ago on every isp-as for home option even in most developed countries its still an issue,while its easy to lay cable to major town but connecting every house,flat is just too expensive-plus its more fragile and requires a lot more work to be deployed into every place,rather then more forgiving Ethernet cable and 1-3$ NICs.

Since for frame-relay it just puzzles me why speeds are so outdated,with current BB options in curriculum.

Node Man

There may not be a lot of frame-relay being built out now. But there is a real lot of it already deployed that needs to be maintained. Also Frame-relay can go alot faster than indicated in certs and text books. I've seen mentions of it going 150 Mbps+.

Also, to get technical, frame-relay is a layer 2 technology. Which may be a deciding factor depending on what an organization needs from its network.

pinkiaiii

while i sort of imagined that in this age it would be a lot simpler way to connect two networks,so this concept of having separate lines switches sort of threw me off,in a way that there has to be separate VC network instead of using same bb line,that said found good article but more interesting comments under it about whole cable costs and how it changed in some parts heres link :While we weren't looking, the WAN changed

networker050184

Frame relay is definitely a legacy technology at this point. Consider it a history lesson unless you are going to work for an outdated provider. You can get ethernet services for cheaper than frame relay these days anyway. Providers will probably be begging you to get off it if it is still hanging around in their network edge.

james43026

Yeah, frame relay is definitely legacy tech at this point. You aren't likely to deal with it in the field, but you might. As networker said, there are a lot of newer technologies that will probably be faster and cheaper.

This is from Verizon

Port Speed (kbps) Charge

56/64 $ 50
128 – 1,024 100
1,536 200
Greater than 1,536 600

Link to above info

While a Metro Ethernet connection would definitely be more costly than frame relay, you would get a much larger bang for your buck, or if you are really close to a telecom CO, you could get ethernet over copper with okay speeds. With that said, there are still companies using frame relay or T1 lines as backup circuits, or they are used to route VOIP traffic between sites.

pinkiaiii

Whole process of FR seems somewhat fascinating bundle that with VPN,how it gets from point a to b and makes network seem as one etc.but i guess unless one is lucky to land in company like isp or private-banks,public service then its sorta concept that most will never utilize it beyond studying the concept.

networker050184

People still certainly want to see their networks as a single segment still. There are just much better ways to do it these days. MPLS backbones are the current way. Not frame or atm.

pevangel

Verizon won't even renew Frame Relay contracts after it expires and that was around 3 years ago.

Getting fiber connectivity to some locations are just not financially feasible. I've done estimates and they can easily reach 6 figures. We would need to review the ROI to see if it's worth building. That's why a lot of sites are stuck with T1s but that's fine for a lot of sites. They can bundle T1s if they want a bit more bandwidth.

pinkiaiii

there were quite few good examples in comments for the link i gave,someone from Canada quote-they would lay fiber on top of electrical/phone poles faster then safety crew could keep up ,now thats proper thinking not digging trenches that are 0000$ per mile.

pevangel

Aerial fiber is not always an option. I price out builds all the time because we would like to get as many sites as we can on fiber, but it's really not financially feasible for some.

theodoxa

I've seen a lot of MPLS recently, but I have not seen any Frame Relay in the real world. That said, I did see a job AD looking for knowledge of it (along with the other WAN technologies) back in 2013. As for the link itself, I've seen everything from T1 (One site even had 4 bonded T1 lines) to Fiber Ethernet to ADSL to Cable. I ran into ADSL at some small businesses and even some larger companies are using Business Class Cable now for small branch sites.