American firms will have to go north of the border if they want to take advantage of the continent's best MPLS  offerings, says a new study by Forrester Research.

According to the study, Canadian ISPs Bell Canada and Telus stand out as the top two MPLS providers in North America, with U.S. companies Verizon and AT&T ranking right behind them. In particular, Bell Canada is ranked far ahead of any other MPLS provider in terms of network performance and in operations support systems. Telus, meanwhile, scores high marks for its market strategy, and its network performance is ranked higher than AT&T's and is on par with Verizon Business'.
Among other things, Forrester says that Bell Canada has the advantage of owning the most core and edge network facilities in Canada, along with three network operation centers (NOC) that support managed MPLS and "robust end-to-end network security capabilities." The Canadian ISP also earned praise for offering enhanced MPLS service features such as multicasting, as well as for pushing an "aggressive" agenda for its service rollouts and enhancements over the next year.

Telus, on the other hand, scored its highest marks for its strategic network investments and planned service enhancements over the next year. As the second-largest MPLS network operator in Canada, Telus runs four NOCs that support managed MPLS, and Forrester says that its MPLS adoption and growth of new managed MPLS customers is even greater than those of Bell Canada.

As far as the American ISPs go, Verizon Business and AT&T rank just behind Telus for their MPLS offerings. Verizon earned praise for its strong focus on both service availability and its repair services, while AT&T scored high marks for its operations support strength and its domestic network scale. Both carriers had room for improvement, however, as Forrester says Verizon could do more to lessen its MPLS latency and jitter, while AT&T could do more to move customers off of its legacy services. Sprint, which finished behind AT&T and Verizon in the U.S. market, received strong grades for its investments and its strategic planning for 2009, as the company hopes to get all of its customer off of its legacy networks and onto MPLS in the first half of next year.