Getting more for less during these tough economic times is a must--and after a recent conversation with New Edge Networks we think that their MPLS over DSL service is a good way for small to medium-sized businesses to do just that. New Edge says they can provide this service to 90 percent of US businesses--so if you have between 5 and 40 sites and an appetite for T1s without the budget to match, you may want to check it out. Kudos to New Edge for anticipating the need for businesses to squeeze better application performance out of a lowly DSL connection and for proactively partnering Redback Networks to make it happen rather than passively waiting on the sidelines.
For those of you not familiar New Edge Networks, it is a CLEC founded back in 1999 to bring broadband access to SMBs in the US hinterlands. Acquired by EarthLink in 2006, New Edge is now a wholly owned EarthLink subsidiary. Because they don't own last mile infrastructure, New Edge must offer value added services to stay in the game--and they are embracing the challenge. The company worked with Redback to extend MPLS tagging across DSL, and first released their MPLS over DSL service two years ago. We're told the service costs half the going rate for a T1 connection.
We asked product marketing and channel programs director Brett Theiss for a preview of other performance management offerings in the works. He told us that New Edge is currently investigating what he calls "no nonsense" tools to monitor and control application performance. Ultimately New Edge wants to go beyond just application performance monitoring and control to offer related professional services--and ultimately application performance SLAs. Theiss scoffs at current carrier SLAs as "nothing more than marketing fodder"--and he should know, since he helped write SLAs while at AT&T.
New Edge is already talking to application vendors like SAP about application-specific SLAs. As a step in that direction, New Edge has a partnership with SAP to boost SAP performance of over the New Edge network. Getting the world to understand the value that New Edge can bring to application performance is a challenge according to Theiss. He told us that people often think of network service providers like power companies. Said Theiss: "We want to sell solutions, not just wires. A solution means trying to take care of business needs. I don't want to be a commodity service. MPLS is MPLS--it's all the same. We need to add value through alliances such as the one we have with SAP."
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MegaPath Has Been Doing This For Years
MegaPath does this for lots of retail/SMBs, and has done so for years. MegaPath can also do hybrid VPNS, so that sites that end up using IPSec for access at the edge (typically business cable internet) cand be integrated into the MPLS cloud, allowing more than just DSL to be used to access locations.
So are the analyst and industry press wrong?
I am curious. If MegaPath has been doing this for years then how did New Edge wins these awards? And are all the analyst and trade press including the writers of this article wrong?
Frost & Sullivan: 2008 Service of the Year.
Frost & Sullivan, a global research firm, has formally recognized New Edge for introducing our MPLS with Class of Service over DSL solution. Frost & Sullivan awarded New Edge the 2008 North American Telecommunications 'Service of the Year Award' for our breakthrough development that "radically changes the network landscape".
2008 Communications Innovator Award for Most Innovative Competitive Carrier. Awarded by New Paradigm Resources Group and Pipeline magazine. The award singles out New Edge for "developing a telecommunications industry-first network service that allows businesses to tag and prioritize data traffic over DSL access using up to five classes of service."
"New Edge Networks' breakthrough Class of Service over DSL solution greatly meets this growing need and further gives SMBs 'enterprise-like' options and the ability to compete on a greater scale against enterprise businesses."
Stephanie Atkinson, managing partner & principal analyst, Compass Intelligence
MegaPath Offering Not the Same
MegaPath offers a network VPN over the public Internet when using multiple access types. NVPN is not the same as respecting MPLS Class of Service tags across the network from edge to edge.
Without that capability, a carrier cannot offer SLA's at the application level. The customer is relying on hope, not class of service.
Not all MPLS and DSL is the same
First of all, we should clarify what MPLS over DSL really means. It all depends on your definition of MPLS. MPLS to the Customer Premises can truly only be done with MPLS enabled DSLAMs and CPE. This is not the case with any carrier I know including New Edge. Also, I want to point out that other companies have been offering an MPLS over DSL solution for years. One such company is Straitshot Communications who debuted the service in 2002. They have been running an MPLS backbone that aggregates numerous DSL and T1 carriers since that time, and DO honor priority tagging to the edge.
Therefore, I find it interesting that NEN has received this award. More interesting is the fact that they are touting this solution as a Holy Grail for application performance over DSL. MPLS is mainly an edge and core technology, not something that has to be pushed out to branch offices. NEN talks about doing this in order to "squeeze better application performance out of lowly DSL" where the fact is that Priority Tagging and therefore "application priority" is normally implemented with DSCP or something similarand really has nothing to do with MPLS. Straitshot has been offering DSCP for application priority for over 5 years and also integrating this with MPLS.
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