Point to Point T1's VS MPLS 1

[TMiller1972]

I'm implementing a VOiP solution. Right now my locations are not linked sufficiently to guarantee quality.

I've looked at MPLS as a solution. I can see that it's good, but it's a $1,600 increase to what I have now.

I avoided Point to Point T1's to the main location because I expected major expense, but I'm now getting P2P prices that woule mean no increase in my monthly cost vs. the major MPLS increase.

With P2P I would have a router on each end of each circuit. So with 4 locations I would have 3 P2P's, all tied to the main 4th location. That main location would have a router for each.

The question here is, should I be able to expect equal quality with the P2P's vs. MPLS?
I'd appreciate any comments / feedback.

Thanks
Tim

 

[robertjo24]

You would likely get higher bandwidth with the MPLS.
On the surface, you would expect the MPLS to have higher reliability. If your main office was in the Midwest, and you were connecting offices on each coast, I would expect this to be the case.
If you are connecting several locations together in the same state or regional area, the expected higher reliability might not be the case.
If you were selecting a major carrier for the T1's, I would likely expect the circuits to traverse their backbone in a similar fasion as does the other traffic they pass, traversing redundant switches and data centers.
If you select a regional/local carrier, you will likely remain on their systems, and their local loops.
Regardless, you will be subject to the LEC's local loop reliability.

Ask your carrier for their Mean Time Between Failures, and their Mean Time to Repair stats, as well as any other outage data that can provide. I would also survey a couple of thier current customers in the area in which you operate. This could give some valuable insight into the carrier's actual reliability -vs- their published numbers.

If you installed a P2P T1 for each location, they could all be tied to the main location through one router with multiple serial interfaces.

If high speed internet is available at the remote locations, you could also look into a backup solution integrating security and VPN capabilities all in the same router. We do this a a few locations (2800 series router) and so far it has been great. If the T1 goes down, the router automaticly intiates a VPN tunnel to the main office via the internet, then shuts it down once the T1 comes back up.

 

[plshlpme]

the mpls provides a mesh network... where the point to point is a hub and spoke and if you lose your hub....

mpls will be a better solution for fault tolerance and as well reduce the delay between sites as obviously you would want the best round trip time possible for voice..

 

[TMiller1972]

thanks for the info.
I ended up going with MPLS. I was able to cut the difference in price in 1/2 through negotiation. Being armed with a good understanding was very empowering for negotiations.

Thanks