Selecting the Best MPLS Provider for Your Company

Written by: Dennis Green - Jan 9, 2009

This article will provide decision considerations for selecting the best MPLS provider to meet the communication network needs of your company. When selecting a multiprotocol-label-switching (MPLS) provider for the communications network of your company, there are many variables to consider. Here are a few suggestions which may assist you in this very important decision:

Is the telecom provider you are considering tier 1, tier 2, or tier 3? This question is an extremely important consideration as you determine which provider you will trust with the entire communication network of your company. For the purpose of this article, a tier 1 provider is a provider that provides the service, and also owns the facilities which will be used to carry this service. In short, a tier 1 company is both the provider of the service, and the carrier (owner of the facilities). The term tier 2 is commonly used to describe a provider that purchases service at wholesale from a carrier, and then resells these services at retail to customers. Tier 2 providers often do not own the facilities that they resell. Tier 3 is commonly used to describe a company which purchases services from a tier 2, then resells these services to customers.
A general rule in telecom is that too many cooks can ruin the stew. The more entities involved, the more potential there is for communication and coordination issues. Lack of communication and coordination can result in increased down times. Increased down time, of course, equates loss of revenue for the company that relies on the communication network to provide goods and services to its customers.
At this time there are only about 4 or 5 tier 1 providers in the US. A major advantage of a tier 1 company is that if something goes wrong with your network, there is no question about which provider or carrier is responsible. In tier 2 and tier 3 situations, the company you report network problems to, often is not the company that can fix the problems. With tier 2 and 3 providers, once you report an issue, the provider must relay that information to the carrier (owner of the facilities). In most cases, you the customer, cannot report the issue directly to the carrier, or communicate directly with the carrier, but must instead work through your provider. To further compound issues, in tier 2 or 3 situations, it is not uncommon for the provider and the carrier to squabble about jurisdictional issues, while your network is down. In an effort to soften these issues, most tier 2 and tier 3 companies offer service level agreements (SLAs) which provide built in penalties to the provider for down time. The most common example of this would be a service credit to the customer. Be wary of the usefulness of SLAs however. In most cases, there is no way that a few days of service credit, will compensate the network customer for the business losses that occur while their entire communication network is down and their company is dead in the water. When choosing between MPLS providers, network reliability, performance track records and uptime histories are far more important than the few days of service credit offered by an SLA if your network goes down or continually performs inconsistently. Tier 1 providers often can demonstrate far better uptime records than tier 2 or tier 3 providers.

Does the provider you are considering provide service to all of the locations that you wish to network? If the answer to this question is no, find a provider that does cover all of your business locations. Patching together a network which includes several providers is a costly nightmare. Telecom providers do not always play well with other telecom providers. Technologies may be incompatible, jurisdiction issues may arise, the potential for communication and coordination issues between providers will be higher and your corporate budget for supporting a patched network will need to be substantial. There are several providers that can cover virtually all areas of the US. It is best to select a provider that can provide service to all locations you intend to include in your network.

Does the provider you are considering have facilities that are relatively close to the locations you wish to network? A major factor in calculating price is the distance between the facilities of your network provider, and your business locations. As a general rule, the farther your locations are from the closest facilities of the provider, the higher the cost will be for connecting that location to the network. Substantial price savings should result if you select a provider that has facilities near all or most of your network locations.

Do you want your network provider to provide and manage the equipment which will facilitate your network? In most cases, the provider can provide the equipment, configure it, monitor it, and maintain it for a fraction of what it would cost your company to assume these responsibilities. This is commonly referred to as managed service (as apposed to unmanaged service, which does not include routers or the management of routers). Managed solutions carry other major advantages as well. With a managed solution, there is no question about whether an outage or latency issue is being caused by the circuit or the router. The provider assumes responsibility for both. With unmanaged solutions, it is not uncommon to have a customer’s IT director arguing that an outage issue is that fault of the circuit, and the circuit provider arguing that the issue is a result of a faulty router. A managed solution removes the potential for this argument. Another major advantage of a managed solution is that if the provider is responsible for routers, credible providers will ping all routers on the network every 3 to 5 minutes, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to monitor that the network is operating at optimal levels. If, during this process a problem is discovered, the provider will automatically notify the customer, and begin working toward resolving the issue immediately. Often providers can correct router issues online, and have issues resolved before problem has the opportunity to hinder operations.
For some network customers, the down side of a managed solution is that their IT personnel have limited access to the configuration of the routers. As the routers are initially configured, the provider will work with customer IT personnel to ensure that configuration is compatible with the customer’s local network. The provider will also make occasional changes in configuration to accommodate changes in customer network needs, but customers are not allowed ongoing access to configure the router on their own. This is because with a managed solution, the provider takes full responsibility for router optimization and maintenance. If a router is not working properly and the provider attempts to repair it, they do not want to encounter configurations which are foreign to them. For the rare situations where the network customer needs ongoing access to router configuration, it is best for the customer to provide and maintain their own routers (an unmanaged solution). A common alternative is for the provider to provide the completely managed router solution, and for the customer to set up their own router between the provider’s router and the customer’s local network. This will allow the provider to manage the wide area MPLS network, and the customer’s IT personnel to manage their on-premise network. It is best to select a telecom provider that has the capability to provide a completely managed solution, and is willing to cooperate fully with an unmanaged solution, depending on the needs of your company.

Does the provider you are considering have a demonstrated track record of competency in providing MPLS, or are they a relative newcomer? Some newer tier 2, or tier 3 providers may offer to save your company a few dollars, when compared to the prices offered by tier 1 companies, but this is often accomplished by cutting corners. Do you want to save a few dollars per month, by trusting the total communication network of your company, the lifeline of service to your customers, to a provider that does not have an extensive history of proficiency? In the world of telecommunications, corner cutting can be a recipe for disaster.

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