Startup Virtela Communications announced on Monday the widespread availability of fully managed Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) services, the latest addition to the company's unique menu of resold managed networking services.
Since Virtela, of Denver, doesn't own its own network, the company must purchase, administer and resell the core networking feeds for all the services it offers. Still, Virtela claims its integration and negotiating skills, combined with some innovative in-house networking smarts, allows it to offer businesses better-run MPLS services than the giant backbone carriers Virtela must purchase the same wholesale services from.
In fact, the company even paints its independence and lack of wiring infrastructure as an asset, not a liability, in the still-developing market for network services based on MPLS, an emerging standard whose proponents say can bring LAN-type performance (and performance guarantees) to wide-area connections.
"If you use MPLS today, you choose one carrier, and you have to use that carrier," said Ian Dix, Virtela's senior vice president of marketing. Virtela's MPLS service, he said, doesn't lock customers in to a single carrier's service, but allows for interconnections between "best of breed" services in whatever markets a customer's intended networking path intends to cross.
According to Virtela, its MPLS services are generally available today, in more than 190 countries at more than 5,000 MPLS-enabled network access points. "Anywhere you can get on the MPLS network, you can get to Virtela," Dix claimed. Pricing is set individually with each customer, the company said, and typically includes one-time setup fees, plus monthly access and management charges.
