What will you do if you’ve been put in charge of finding a solution on network services. Your company’s growing and but also looking for comparable in pricing with the frame relay but offers more bandwidth?

With the move to converged networks truly underway, IP/MPLS-based services are increasingly being considered for new and existing data networks.

Questions that come to mind include:
- Are IP/MPLS -based services really the best option for my organization’s requirements?
- From a pricing perspective, how do IP/MPLS -based services compare to existing technologies such as Frame Relay?
- What are the commonalities and differences between IP/MPLS and Frame Relay services?

This Research report is designed to assist networking professionals and business managers in assessing the technology and pricing choices affiliated with Australian Frame Relay and IP/MPLS solutions.

The report provides a brief technical description of Frame Relay and IP/MPLS services and discusses migration paths between these technologies. It discusses pricing elements for Frame Relay and IP/MPLS, as well as information about Telsyte’s bandwidth pricing databases (used to create solution pricing models).

The report, designed as a business case decision tool, also presents a range of common network topology/pricing Scenarios for Australian Frame Relay and IP/MPLS solutions.

Through the use of network topology illustrations and comparative financial models, this report provides a demonstration of network topology/pricing scenarios for Australian Frame Relay and IP/MPLS solutions using Industry Median prices from Telsyte’s Data Services Bandwidth Pricing Databases. To illustrate the impact of network topology on pricing scenarios this report compares Hub-and-Spoke, Redundant Link Hub-and-Spoke (Partial Mesh) and Fully Meshed Connectivity for the following network models:

Scenario 1: 5 Capital Cities
Scenario 2: 5 Intra-State Cities
Scenario 3: 5 Capital Cities, Each With 3 Hub Sites
Scenario 4: 21 Intra-State Sites
Scenario 5: 5 Capital Cities, Each With 3 Second Tier Sites and 10 Third Tier Sites

By understanding the impact of technology features, service pricing and network topologies; organizations can use this report to future-proof their network investments.

Benefits of MPLS:

* Multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) was invented to solve the problem of bridging multiple disparate protocols such as Frame Relay, ATM and Ethernet.
* Over the last few years, MPLS has become the dominant internetworking technology. More and more providers are migrating to MPLS.
* Carriers have deployed IP/MPLS core routers in order to support existing legacy networks more cost effectively.
* Fundamentally, MPLS employs an encapsulation technique providing internetworking between different technologies, coupled with signaling protocols necessary to discover, configure and manage connectivity.
* In addition to signaling protocols, MPLS uses resiliency protocols, such as Fast Re-route and Bi-directional Fault Detection, to determine failures and in turn switching to standby links.
* The strength of these protocols combined with the popularity of MPLS core networks have made MPLS a logical choice for extending into metro networks.
* Vendors have responded by creating MPLS-enabled multi-service platforms with a mixture of legacy port options.

MPLS combines the multi-service and traffic management capabilities of ATM with the scalability of packet networks to create a best-of-breed service provider network.

Main reasons to deploy MPLS include:

* Cost reduction through data network convergence: MPLS facilitates the convergence of disparate Frame Relay, ATM, Ethernet and IP networks onto a single infrastructure to reduce capital and operational expenses. The cost savings can be up to 40% from frame relay.
* Integration of voice, video and data services: MPLS’s traffic management capabilities enable this services “triple play” on a common backbone.
* New high-margin revenue opportunities through MPLS-based service offerings: MPLS’s flexibility, high availability and multi-service support enables service providers to offer strict SLAs, increasing revenue and margins.

MPLS can lower operational costs by integrating multiple services onto a common backbone; has integrated capabilities which enable service providers to offer strict SLAs and thereby increase revenue and margins; and facilitates the convergence of disparate Frame Relay, ATM, Ethernet and IP networks onto a single infrastructure to reduce capital and operating expenses.

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