broadwing announces layer 2/3 mpls

benefits include service transparency, QoS, scalability

BROADWING COMMUNICATIONS LLC IN June will introduce new Layer 2 and Layer 3 MPLS solutions. Both will be based on the Tellabs 8860 Managed Service Switch Router, which does switching and routing in one chassis and with one network management system. Broadwing is a carrier’s carrier that also has a direct channel to enterprise customers.

While several other service providers, including AT&T, have been offering MPLS-based Layer 3 solutions for some time, Jamey Heinze, Broadwing’s director of product management for data services, told xchange in a Jan. 21 interview that Broadwing will be unique in providing an MPLS solution supporting both Layer 2 and Layer 3 services.

Layer 3, or routed, VPNs handle IP applications only and require managed routing for each customer. Layer 2, or switched, VPLS supports any protocol over the MPLS backbone and provides customers a higher level of security, according to Heinze, because they get to manage their own routing tables. “A Layer 2 VPN creates a big local area network, so the customer can run their WAN like they run their LAN today,” Heinze continues. “It looks like a large bridged Ethernet topology.”

VPLS is based on an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) draft called Lasserre-V. Kompella, written by Marc Lasserre of Riverstone Networks Inc. and Vach Kompella of TiMetra Networks, now owned by Alcatel. A class of VPN that allows the connection of multiple sites in a single bridged domain over a provider-managed IP/MPLS network, VPLS makes all customer sites appear to be on the same LAN, regardless of their locations.

With VPLS, customers maintain complete control over their routing, and since all customer routers in VPLS architectures are part of the same LAN, the result is a simplified IP addressing plan, especially when compared to a mesh constructed from separate point-to-point connections.

A business might use VPLS because its network doesn’t only use IP. Some businesses still use AppleTalk and IPX protocols. IP VPNs are IP-based and don’t support such protocols.

Other companies offering VPLS services today include Allstream; Completel, an alternative provider in France; Masergy; MetroNet, a carriers’ carrier in Mexico; and SureWest, a regional operator in greater Sacramento. Masergy, which was the first VPLS service provider, sells commercial VPLS services in Europe and the United States. Also, some cable operators are using VPLS for the dual purposes of offering broadcast video services and expanding into business services.

Customers can attach to Broadwing Layer 2 or Layer 3 service options via a variety of connections including Ethernet, private line, ATM or frame relay, says Heinze.

“We can do point-to-point and any-to-any WANs,” Heinze says. The MPLS solution “enables new applications like unified messaging and VoIP.”

Broadwing will offer four quality of service levels for its MPLS services. That will include a standard/best effort level; a standard data rate, which is a committed information rate for a certain port; a priority data option, which Heinze says is akin to ATM’s virtual bit rate; and the highest level service — called voice. “This is true QoS support,” Heinze says. “The way Tellabs addresses QoS is really fantastic. They’ve taken the best of ATM algorithms and applied them to MPLS.”

Heinze was not ready to provide pricing information during an interview in January, but said pricing will start at fractional T1. The customer will buy a port speed and get full bandwidth at best effort up to that port speed and buy premium traffic handling on top in kilobit or megabit increments.

As a footnote, Heinze adds that Ethernet has long been touted in the United States as “the next great thing.” But carriers in Asia are much further along in Ethernet and VPLS, he says. “We just had Broadwing at PTC [’05 event Jan. 16 through 19 in Hawaii] and had three Asian carriers saying ‘we’re so excited you’re doing VPLS, we are dying to have a partner to do VPLS with and we have no one to connect to in the U.S.’”

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines