On Wednesday, the telecommunicatons giant launched its new US$10-million IP-VPN QoS (Quality of Service) solution and the MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) network, saying it would now be better able to utilise its own existing bandwidth and thus reduce its cost per unit.

Lloyd Distant, C&W's vice-president for business solutions, said his company would be the only one in Jamaica to offer an islandwide solution with the cost-savings, performance, and reliability provided by the new technology.

"We are enthusiastic about the possibilities that will evolve for our customers' corporate networks, now that we have the MPLS groundwork in place," Distant told guests at the Cable & Wireless Golf Academy in New Kingston.

MPLS technology optimises data network efficiency by enabling "labelling" of data packets according to their application, and assigning various priorities to different types of data.  Every customer using MPLS solutions such as IP-VPN QoS from Cable & Wireless can define the applications most crucial to their business, so that they are prioritised in the IP network.

Prior to MPLS, getting greater speed and performance from data networks meant purchasing more bandwidth - and even then, networks provided "best effort" with no guarantees.

C&W said the move to MPLS technology had transformed its data networks to be entirely Internet Protocol (IP)-based, "so that they speak a common language that easily connects with hundreds of existing and future applications".

The move to an IP-based architecture also enables easy global connectivity and offers heightened security via data encryption.

As support for the MPLS-based customer solutions, sales staff and technical teams were currently going through major training programmes across all Caribbean islands where C&W operates.

Several engineers will receive globally recognised IP-certification - representing a significant investment in the technical community in the region, and in individual careers.  The launch of the new solution signifies a major US$10-million investment by the company in infrastructure and personnel development, said Enrique Camacho, senior vice-president, data services, C&W Caribbean.

"MPLS is a technology that we deployed in order to satisfy our customers' requirements for bandwidth, Quality of Service, and flexible routing between customers' premises," said Camacho.  "Additionally, our MPLS network will allow a more efficient implementation of business applications, which will require our professional teams to partner with each customer to deliver the requirements for that specific business."

Chris Hetherington, CEO Americas & Caribbean, added that Cable & Wireless was the first company to offer a comprehensive MPLS network in the Caribbean.

"Our top corporate customers require guarantees on the speed and quality of service our IP networks can provide, whether it be for video conferencing, voice services, or email and other transactional data," said Hetherington.

"Today, we are in a world where volume of applications and data flow is great, and network capacity can be limited or expensive.  Older legacy systems are insufficient in providing value for bandwidth.  Our investment in MPLS puts Cable & Wireless in an advantageous position," he said.  "Not only are we able to offer quality guarantees to our customers, but we are using bandwidth more efficiently than before, which keeps their costs down.  This is a key difference in today's IP-VPN QoS solution versus our offerings in the past."

Hetherington also suggested that the increase in usage of Voice Over Internet Protocol amongst major Caribbean corporations necessitated a robust solution to manage many different applications via one data "pipe".

article link