* Broadwing to launch MPLS VPN service in June
Businesses interested in a network-based VPN have a new option from Broadwing.
In June, the company plans to launch an MPLS-based VPN service that lets customers access the network via virtually any method – from DSL to Ethernet – and to run their traffic across the Broadwing backbone at either Layer 2 or Layer 3. All customer sites are fully meshed, so that any site can communicate directly with any other site as a standard part of the service.
Whichever layer they use, customers will be able to lock in service quality per application. So e-mail traffic could be assigned to best-effort quality and video could be assigned to a higher quality that allows for less delay and jitter. The carrier offers four classes of service.
Billing for the service is keyed into these service levels. Customers pay per physical port that connects to the network, the larger the bandwidth the higher the price. The port comes with best-effort QoS, and customers pay extra for higher QoS.
The actual prices have not been set yet, but Broadwing claims they will be significantly lower than, say, a frame-relay network service.
The Layer 2 service will likely be attractive to customers who don’t want to share their IP routing schemes with their service provider. In order to use the Layer 3 service, customers have to reveal their routing tables to the carrier so they can be loaded into virtual routers in Broadwing’s network.
Customers pay the same for Layer 2 or Layer 3, the company says.
Layer 2 and Layer 3 options, QoS and interworking access methods are all key elements of a well-rounded VPN service, so customers who can wait ’til June might want to add Broadwing to the list of providers they consider.
