Lucent's PortMaster 3 enables first ISDN PRI service in Brazil Brazil covers the largest landmass in Latin America, with a population of more than 160 million. When Brazil opened its market to foreign vendor computer sales in 1992, both large and small computer manufacturers worldwide quickly moved in to take advantage of the high demand for computers within Brazil and of the duty-free agreements Brazil has with its MERCOSUR trading-partners - Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. These market forces quickly created a high demand for dial-up interconnectivity via the Internet. The business challenge: no carrier for high-speed access Until very recently, Brazil's telecommunications infrastructure could not support even 28.8K dial-up Internet access speeds, and Integrated Services Digital Networks (ISDNs) weren't available anywhere. While some of Brazil's regional telcos offered ISDN service, it was only for testing purposes. That meant high-speed connectivity for corporate accounts was impossible. Early this year, though, Telemig, one of Brazil's leading telco providers, decided it was time to make ISDN commercially available by working with a start-up Internet service provider (ISP) named i2, whose URL is http://www.i2.com.br. This ISP currently has only one point of presence (POP). But i2 is located in Belo Horizonte, the provincial capital of Minas Gerais, so the company is strategically located to meet the high-speed Internet access demands of its target market - large corporate clients. To do this, i2 needed an integrated server-router solution that met stringent requirements for reliability and ease of management, as well as full compatibility with Telemig's central office equipment. The technical solution: Lucent PortMaster 3 and Office Router AP "When we decided to move ahead with this project," says Jeronimo de Alencar Barros, technical director for i2, "we analyzed and evaluated many different types of InterNetworking Systems equipment. With technical consulting help from our local reseller Microhard and supply and maintenance support from our Latin America distributor, Cernet, we decided on the Lucent PortMaster 3 InterNetworking Systems Concentrator and the Lucent Office Router AP (ST) as the best options. Our regional carrier, Telemig, tested both products and approved them for ISDN PRI support." Both Telemig and i2 favored the PortMaster 3 because of its compact design, industrial-strength reliability, and the local support of Lucent's Latin America distributor, Cernet. They liked how easy it was to configure these two InterNetworking Systems devices. And they were really impressed when the Office Router AP (ST) delivered 15 KB per second in an already compressed file transfer. "This level of performance," Jeronimo observed, "was way beyond our expectations." Next step - the carrier class PortMaster 4? So what's next for Telemig, i2, and their corporate customers - Lucent's new carrier-class platform? With its embedded 5 Gbps switching fabric and capacity to support 864 digital modem connections in a single 15.75-inch high chassis, the next-generation PortMaster 4 Integrated Access Concentrator looks like the only logical choice for companies like Telemig and i2. Lucent InterNetworking Systems and our reseller-distributor partners in Latin America are ready to provide whatever it takes to help our customers succeed.