Private IP is now available directly from MCI in Kuwait, South Africa, and Turkey and through additional partner agreements in Brazil, China, India and Mexico. Additionally, the service now features Ethernet Access in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK; and adds access via MCI’s IP network across Europe, as well as new application awareness features and WAN analysis reporting.
One company benefiting from these enhancements is Storagetek, the leading provider globally of enterprise information lifecycle management solutions. MCI provided a fully-managed Private IP MPLS-based solution across Europe as part of a global migration from Frame Relay. “MCI’s solution offered a fully resilient service with the ability to upgrade or change bandwidth easily and with minimal disruption. It also enables us to leverage future Voice over IP (VoIP) capabilities and provides Storagetek with the ability to communicate efficiently within the ’any-to-any‘ global network cloud”, said Kieron McGarry, IT Director, Storagetek.
Ethernet Access into the MCI MPLS network gives customers additional access flexibility and the adaptability to undertake easier upgrades and downgrades. The availability of MCI’s Private IP Network Gateway across Europe enables customers to connect to MCI’s Private IP network using public IP access via dedicated access or DSL. Private IP Network Gateway leverages MCI’s points of presence in more than 2800 cities globally, providing an entry level solution for remote customer sites.
“MCI is committed to developing products and services that will enable customers to gain real competitive advantage from the next generation of communications technologies,” explains Roberta Mackintosh, Senior Director, Products, Pricing and Analysis for MCI Europe. “These enhancements address the growing demand to extend reach and offer scalable solutions and features that enhance the applications’ awareness of the network. “
Business applications put ever-growing requirements upon their WANs. To support this, MCI is adding two new features that enhance the application awareness of the Private IP Network.
A new VRF Lite (VPN Routing & Forwarding) feature allows for multiple VPN routing and forwarding features on a single edge router enabling customers to cost effectively segment their network, making provisioning and network management easier compared to a multiple customer edge router solution. MCI is also introducing a managed voice interface card for customers who want to move to a converged network at their own pace. Alternatively, MCI Advantage is available for customers that are ready to expand to a full converged environment for both internal and external calls supported by voice specific SLAs and additional IP features.
Finally, MCI has begun offering WAN Analysis Reporting powered by Concord, providing customers with enhanced visibility into system efficiency and critical resource availability, as well as the ability to quickly identify network degrading conditions and proactively plan for network capacity. This capability is offered via a web tool which requires no additional CPE at the customer’s premises.