Jon Floyd

By mid-year , said Jon Floyd , Equant's IP marketing manager , each of Equant's four service classes will have independent SLAs associated with it.Last summer , the company launched VOIP services in 57 countries and , at press time , said it was about a month away from offering special VOIP SLAs.

Carriers such as WorldCom are also looking to beef up their network guarantees.For its singlenetwork TotalAccess IP-VPN services , WorldCom currently offers SLAs on just two network metrics : availability and latency.TotalAccess runs over WorldCom's Internet backbone , which it gained with the acquisition of UUNet.

In a single provider domain, service levels can be specified, but in a public environment this is not possible, notes Jon Floyd, a spokesperson for Equant (www.equant.com), a global provider of IP and data services to multinationals."Many of the ‘standards' that support the Internet are wide open to interpretation, so to expect consistency of service across the spectrum may be a little too much to ask for and maybe even impossible.

"Apart from these concerns, security and over-subscription can also present headaches," Floyd says, adding that in some cases over subscription on the Internet can reach a ratio of 50:1 or higher.Global operators such as Equant avoid many of the problems by having a single global backbone, so there is no argument about who owns the problem, Floyd adds.

Prioritising Traffic

One protocol that is helping service providers to offer greater QoS is multiple protocol label switching (MPLS), where traffic is assigned a priority label that allows for ATM-like QoS guarentees.

"The risk with the Internet is that there are so many attacks that companies can be exposed to by opening all of their networks," states John Floyd, Equant's IP marketing manager based in Slough, England.

"If you're going into the business-to-business (B2B) environment, it's very much about opening up a lot more of your business systems to your suppliers and partners."

Equant, with headquarters in Atlanta and London, claims to operate the world's largest telecommunications network and, in September, launched a new global IP-based supply chain extranet service.

Upsides

Jon Floyd , market analyst at Equant , suggests successful migration lies in seeing the value of convergence and driving that vision forward within the enterprise from the very top down.Service providers have not only to convince the voice professionals within organisations , who are used to dealing with incumbents but also , most importantly , the chief executives or chief operating officers by illustrating the savings over traditional voice networks , he says.

Continue

Jon Floyd , marketing manager for Equant's lines of business organization , agrees.

We thought we would see a drive toward using the Internet as the backbone , but that approach hasn't taken off yet for most corporate e-businesses , Floyd says.Most of the e-businesses feel that there is too much exposure on the Internet , so they are using IP VPNs or our private network services..

"In a business environment, using a private network, you understand exactly what the client's requirements are, and have immediate feedback about the service provided," says John Floyd, head of IP marketing at Equant.

Jon Floyd, marketing director, Equant*, adds, "SLAs are an initial 'tick in the box' but as the stages develop, other issues such as market experience and cost become more important."

...
Equant's Floyd outlines the three classes of parameters that service providers usually cover:

broad spectrum parameters such as network availability, which are available on all platforms (frame relay, ATM or IP VPN);

product-specific SLAs, which only relate to certain products.For example, frame relay provides class of service (CoS) different to that provided by IP; and

service-specific SLAs, which are unique to services.

"We don't specifically delineate wholesale from retail or offer any specific ‘white label' versions of the IP VPN service" commented Jon Floyd, Marketing Director at Equant."What we do is provide a market leading service option that's equally applicable across potential service providers, indirect sales channels and end-users themselves" he added.
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As an example, we work with China NetCom to sell IP VPN solutions in China, maximising our respective strengths in that market" says Jon Floyd of Equant.

"We don't specifically delineate wholesale from retail or offer any specific ‘white label' versions of the IP VPN service" commented Jon Floyd, Marketing Director at Equant."What we do is provide a market leading service option that's equally applicable across potential service providers, indirect sales channels and end-users themselves" he added.It seems that in the main, current service providers offer IP VPN options with a more generic appeal, but which may be more appropriate for some over others.Global Crossing for example offer Express Route (geared for the carrier market) and positions it more as a market led rather than as a specific wholesale offering.Carriers tailor their products to appeal to particular markets, like carriers on the one had (wholesale) and MNCs on the other (Retail).Express Route in the case of Global Crossing operates with up to 622Mbps, has usage based billing and was soon to allow auto-provisioning.These features appeal to wholesale buyers.Retail offerings across the market tend to be more feature rich, aimed more at the final end-user.
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As an example, we work with China NetCom to sell IP VPN solutions in China, maximising our respective strengths in that market" says Jon Floyd of Equant.It seems though that this model of offering product portfolios to both the retail and wholesale space runs the inherent risk of channel conflict.

In a single provider domain, service levels can be specified, but in a public environment this is not possible, notes Jon Floyd, a spokesperson for Equant (www.equant.com), a global provider of IP and data services to multinationals."Many of the ‘standards' that support the Internet are wide open to interpretation, so to expect consistency of service across the spectrum may be a little too much to ask for and maybe even impossible.

"Apart from these concerns, security and over-subscription can also present headaches," Floyd says, adding that in some cases over subscription on the Internet can reach a ratio of 50:1 or higher.Global operators such as Equant avoid many of the problems by having a single global backbone, so there is no argument about who owns the problem, Floyd adds.

Prioritising Traffic

One protocol that is helping service providers to offer greater QoS is multiple protocol label switching (MPLS), where traffic is assigned a priority label that allows for ATM-like QoS guarentees.