Service
providers have reached a critical stage in the development of their
data networks. The flood of capital invested by service providers to
build out the Internet and its optical foundation has all but dried
up. In most cases, the resulting network infrastructures are not yet
generating enough revenue to offset the associated capital and
operating costs. Meanwhile ATM, Frame Relay and Private Line
services remain a profitable revenue source, but are facing pricing
pressure due to an overabundance of long-haul bandwidth. Together,
these factors are driving service providers to seek ways to increase
the capacity of existing Layer 2 services while deriving additional
service revenues from their high-capacity IP networks.
What
if the excess capacity in existing service provider IP network
infrastructures could be used to deliver profitable Layer 2 services
such as Frame Relay and ATM? This
would allow service providers to maintain or even increase their
current ATM and Frame Relay revenue streams by scaling
capacity-constrained ATM and Frame Relay services without the
associated cost of infrastructure expansion. This could be done by
simply taking advantage of the excess capacity of IP networks. The
resulting converged service network would also reduce ongoing
operating costs by carrying multiple services over a single IP
backbone.
What
if this same IP network infrastructure could be used to introduce
new services and service bundles while also enhancing existing IP
services? For example, providers could generate additional revenue
through VPNs, new Ethernet Private Line (EPL) services and premium
Internet services.
Enter
MPLS (Multiprotocol
Label Switching).
Once viewed only as a traffic engineering technology, service
providers have begun to see MPLS as the missing link that can turn
their IP backbone into a true multiservice infrastructure.
And for good reason: MPLS brings the connection-oriented
forwarding necessary to bring private data transport services to the
IP network, while also offering the Quality of Service (QoS) and
bandwidth management functionality of traditional Frame Relay and
ATM networks.
So, how can service providers
take advantage of MPLS with the infrastructure they currently have
in place? The answer is surprisingly simple. The first step is for
service providers to “turn on” MPLS in their core IP routers,
which can be done quickly and easily since MPLS is already enabled
in the IP routing software of the leading core router vendors.
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