With Sprint activly advertising frame relay on commercial television, AT&T officially announced the availability of T-3 frame relay ports last week as part of a managed voice-over-IP service that runs over a frame relay infrastructure.
AT&T actually tariffed its T-3 frame service late last year but did not commercially promote it. The company's formal sanctioning of the services marks a definite shift in positioning for AT&T, which long mandated the use of frame relay for T-1-and-below WAN requirements and ATM for above-T-1-speed network connections.
The AT&T tariffed monthly recurring charge for a T-1 frame relay port is $3,130. A T-3 port costs about 3.5 times more ($10,800) for 28 times the capacity. So, while $11,000 per month in service fees reflects some serious change, you also get some very serious bandwidth - and you get it at a much lower per-unit cost.
(Anyone got a free 11 grand to spare each month, so I can "test" a T3 into my house... Ed.)
News source: Network World Fusion
