RBOCs along for the MPLS ride

The RBOCs plan to roll out MPLS-based VPN services in their regions, and then nationwide as they get long-distance approval and build out their IP backbones.

SBC, for example, will roll out RFC 2547-based IP-enabled frame and IP VPN services by the end of the year. SBC does not expect a significant migration of its frame customer base to IP VPNs. Demand will arise from customers that want to leverage their existing investment in frame to take advantage of the IP-enabled frame service -- which, in essence, gives them MPLS.

Demand for IP VPNs will come from customers building new networks or adding new locations to their networks. Frame relay customers will “converge” towards IP VPNs by gradually adding those services to their existing IP-enabled frame services, SBC officials say.

 “There’s no wholesale change-out and we don’t anticipate any wholesale change-out,” says Burt Winter, executive director of IP VPN dedicated Internet and integrated access.

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The RBOCs plan to roll out MPLS-based VPN services in their regions, and then nationwide as they get long-distance approval and build out their IP backbones.

SBC, for example, will roll out RFC 2547-based IP-enabled frame and IP VPN services by the end of the year. SBC does not expect a significant migration of its frame customer base to IP VPNs. Demand will arise from customers that want to leverage their existing investment in frame to take advantage of the IP-enabled frame service -- which, in essence, gives them MPLS.

Demand for IP VPNs will come from customers building new networks or adding new locations to their networks. Frame relay customers will “converge” towards IP VPNs by gradually adding those services to their existing IP-enabled frame services, SBC officials say.

 “There’s no wholesale change-out and we don’t anticipate any wholesale change-out,” says Burt Winter, executive director of IP VPN dedicated Internet and integrated access.

SBC’s customers are mostly curious about MPLS as a standards-based enabler of service rather than demanding it.

“We are seeing with our customers, there is a lot of uncertainty in the market about MPLS, what it provides, how to take advantage of it, how to leverage it in the network,” says Steve Ellis, SBC executive director of frame relay and ATM services. “From a customer perspective – and understand this is probably more perception than anything – they are wanting to get under the hood a little bit, they are wanting to understand how you’re deploying MPLS within your network.”

Customers fear services not based on MPLS will leave them “with the equivalent of a Betamax instead of a VHS,” Ellis says. But in the end, customers won’t care what’s in the network if they receive the desired functionality, he says.

“There’s a lot of buzz around MPLS. But we don’t anticipate selling our customers an MPLS pipe,” says Winter. “It is a lot more of an infrastructure protocol than anything.”

Qwest, on the other hand, says it doesn’t receive many requests for or inquiries about MPLS from its enterprise customers. That may be because Qwest does not yet offer an MPLS-based IP VPN service, says Bob Schroeder, senior director of VPN and security services.

Qwest currently offers private routed network VPNs based on IPSec, and managed firewall and security VPNs. The carrier will soon offer an RFC 2547-enabled “Smart PVC” service to give Qwest’s frame and ATM customers fully meshed IP routing.

“Our frame enterprise buyers are saying, ‘Give me IP routing, a more cost-effective network, a fully meshed network without all of these PVCs everywhere,’” Schroeder says.

Qwest is hoping to roll out this service later this year, he says.

Verizon is in the process of turning up this year a national IP/MPLS network. The first two services to ride over that infrastructure will be RFC 2547 Layer 3 IP VPNs and metro Ethernet Transparent LAN Services, says Stuart Elby, vice president of network architecture for Verizon enterprise technologies.