The Great Carrier MPLS Rip-Off

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The Great Carrier MPLS Rip-Off
By Jack Sadot 03/01/2006 12:00 AM ESTURL: http://www.itarchitect.com/shared/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=180201636

Back in the late 1990s, private networks made sense for connecting overseas offices. The Internet wasn't considered enterprise-class, and frame relay lines with a 25 percent Committed Information Rate (CIR) were sufficient for most offices. Times have changed. Today Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is "in" and frame relay "out." However, IT architects should still avoid private networking technologies and use Internet VPNs to interconnect offices--even remote offices running VoIP.

This fact hit home for me about a year ago when we began major offshore development in India. I wasn't ready to take risks at the time, so I fought to get the best possible deal on private lines for the development site, finally settling on a global provider with excellent references in India that offered us a private network with impressive SLAs for both availability and latency. My justification for ordering lines costing five times more than a local Internet connection was that we didn't know what we'd encounter, this being our first real attempt at decentralizing our development teams.

The vendor kept its word with all that was under its control. Performance met the SLA, but not availability. Unfortunately, the SLA didn't cover outages due to local loop problems, and in India there are plenty of those. India's substandard infrastructure is easily affected by construction, weather, and haphazard procedures.

Compared to our smaller Indian non-development office running an ADSL line, the only real differences were the attentive support and high price. Performance was amazingly similar between the two sites. The SLA called for 275ms door-to-door, and with the VPN overhead we measured 295ms. The ADSL-based VPN measured 305ms.

Even VoIP quality was fine over the ADSL link. As long as we give priority to a limited and specific set of services, such as VoIP and interactive data, and as long as we avoid complex rules that attempt to avoid prioritizing down to the specific application, we're able to accomplish what we need with an Internet connection. Our VoIP network, based on AudioCodes gateways attached to standard PBXs, requires just 18Kbps per session for voice, so we can plan for several of those even on an ADSL line with a 192Kbps upload speed.

While we do suffer performance problems throughout the Asia-Pacific region, particularly in difficult-to-connect countries such as India and Indonesia, these cases are usually due to limitations of the speed of light or poor local infrastructure, both of which also afflict frame relay and even MPLS networks. Our experience throughout the world is that Internet connections are stable and have surprisingly low jitter. VoIP connection works well, and where we decide to use a separate infrastructure for voice and data, we do so using additional ADSL lines.

Sticking with an ISP also means we control the vendor relationship. A month doesn't go by when we don't add or change a line somewhere. Where we see chronic problems not typical of the local infrastructure, we simply switch ISPs. Because we're not locked into any global agreements, we're consistently able to increase bandwidth while containing or cutting costs.

With the results of our initial VPN connections over the Internet so encouraging, we've expanded their use around the globe. As we work with local vendors to achieve the best terms in each location, we see all sorts of business models and levels of service. In the final analysis, however, we've found that Internet-based connections always win out over private networks. The connectivity that the Internet offers may not be perfect, but it's good enough, and for us architects on a tight budget that's exactly what we're after.

Jack Sadot is an IT architect at an S&P 500 company with 5,000 employees, several hundred subcontracts, and offices in over 50 locations worldwide.



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SMBs more than small talk

SMBs more than small talk
by Craig M. Clausen
Mar 6, 2006 12:00 PM

SMBs represent some 5 million businesses with 40+ million employees and more than $100 billion in spending on communications services. Consider the demand dynamics of other segments: Consumers go with what's least expensive and still works. Large enterprise technological demands vary and are more sophisticated. Some 75% of this segment has IP deployed in their network, so they are comfortable with voice-over-IP (VoIP) services.
SMBs, which sit in between these segments, have the most to gain from a packet-based network. VoIP represents a way for SMBs to realize true cost efficiencies and take advantage of advanced services previously available only to enterprise users.

The most obvious benefit is a reduction in telecom costs. Initially, VoIP carriers overpriced their offerings. Since then, carriers have significantly reduced prices, and SMBs can now obtain VoIP service (flat-rate service with advanced features included) for $10 to $40 per station. Now, SMBs have begun to embrace VoIP offerings with roughly 3% to 5% of SMBs signing up for service by 2006.

On top of the essential out-of-pocket cost reductions are true operational efficiencies. Adding and dropping users (there are no more “moves”), deploying new features and monitoring the network become almost costless tasks for SMB managers. Also, through VoIP, one less hurdle exists for embracing remote working arrangements, as remote employees fitted with a VoIP phone are seamlessly integrated with the mother ship. No more 10-digit dialing, or worse, more costly Centrex services. Intercom and four-digit dialing render these obsolete.

Although tremendous progress has been made over the past year, service providers and equipment vendors can't rest on their laurels, hoping that fancy VoIP services are enough to snag new business. Providers must frame VoIP as a slice of a bigger set of services in the packetized, broadband world.

It's clear that there are other offerings that emerging providers can add to enhance their attractiveness to prospective SMB customers. Some providers, such as Geckotech and XO Communications, are offering VoIP bundled with other products in attractive packages that include dedicated Internet access, dynamic bandwidth allocation, unlimited local calling, unlimited inbound and outbound domestic long-distance calling, Web hosting and an administrative Web portal for making real-time changes to service. To some extent, creative services will dictate which service providers survive in the SMB market.

What should service providers be preparing to provide the SMBs? They need to start with the assumption that SMBs are always cost-conscious. Combining voice and data traffic on one pipe and reducing monthly recurring costs from previously separate public network and data connections is a boon.

The future lies in pushing other services over this pipe. In addition to VoIP and dedicated Internet access services, the new basket of services must include managed services (including hosting application servers), desktop maintenance (via online maintenance tools), Web hosting, Web design and mobile VoIP service. This last service promises to be a catalyst in realizing true integration. SMBs eventually will expect mobile phones to be integrated as another extension of the customer's VoIP system. All the features and benefits of an IP wired phone will have to be available on mobile phones. The key for service providers, of course, is to look at the bigger picture — communications service.

It will take a different mindset that truly embraces the integrated service provider concept. In the end, telecom carriers must become service providers to survive.

Craig M. Clausen is chief operating officer and senior vice president of New Paradigm Resources Group, Inc., a Chicago-based research and consulting firm. Clausen can be reached at cclausen@nprg.com or by phone at (312) 980-7848.