Overview:

Advanced Communications Services have become increasingly relevant to
businesses in large part because of the proliferation of branch offices, remote
workers, and the need for access to centrally provided data and applications.
These services, including Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS), Ethernet,
Internet access, peering, hosted connectivity and mobile offerings, are becoming
even more critical because the way we work is changing dramatically.

The majority of companies now:

• Rely on MPLS VPN services for site-to-site connectivity.
• Are increasingly using Ethernet as part of their WAN strategies, eitherfor access to MPLS-VPNs,
  or to supplement (or even replace MPLSVPN services) with Layer-2 services.
• Are running multiple traffic types including voice, video, and/or data, across their WANs.
• Are increasing demands for bandwidth, both to the branch as well as to the Internet.
• Are deploying SIP trunking to reduce PSTN access costs while increasing call routing flexibility.

Consequently, understanding trends in service availability, features and
pricing around MPLS, Ethernet, Internet and SIP services is vital. IT have
aggressively leveraged these new service options to reduce operating costs, or
reduce per-bit cost of bandwidth enabling their organizations to meet everincreasing
demands for bandwidth with little or no increase in monthly operating
costs.

The limiting factor for many services continues to be availability as larger
providers are often slow to ramp up Ethernet or SIP-trunking service offerings, or
they must overcome challenges related to integrating past acquisitions. This has
led enterprise IT architects to leverage service offerings from emerging providers
as an alternative to their established service providers.

In the never-ending quest to stay ahead of industry trends, IT executives
are investigating hosted peering options to increase Internet resiliency. Finally, a
small number of organizations are investigating IPv6 to provide new
functionality or to meet growing governmental requirements.

Clients read this benchmark: Building a Successful WAN

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