MPLS has become the de facto standard for converged WANs. Its growth has been swift and steady, with adoption between 38% and 73%, depending on the market segment. Large companies have adopted in greater percentages than small and midsize organizations.

One of the concerns, though, is affordable local access. On average, T-1 access in the United States is $435 per line, according to the Advanced Communications Services benchmark Nemertes has just completed. That can add up for companies with multiple branch offices, particularly now that T-1 has become the most common access speeds to branch locations.

Certainly some organizations use DSL and even cable-modem services as lower-cost alternatives to straight T-1 access lines. The problem is that there is no way to tag and prioritize packets from end-to-end when companies use broadband access. (Some providers are using LAN-side queuing, but not full diff-serve tagging.)

New Edge Networks finished testing of its DSL access to MPLS, and the service is now generally available. New Edge also announced pricing, which is quite appealing. New Edge is charging a $100 premium per line for DSL access to MPLS using up to five classes of service. With fully managed, business-grade DSL services averaging about $140 per line, the New Edge service will cost about $240 per month with this service, compared to $435, on average, with straight T-1.

Of course, one key difference in using DSL vs. T-1 is that the DSL services supported are asynchronous, typically 1.544Mbps upstream and 768Mbps 512Mbps downstream. T-1 still makes more sense for locations that are sending and receiving large and symmetric volumes of traffic. T-1s also are more logical for those who need more solid mean-time-to-repair guarantees. The DSL service has an 18-hour Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) guarantee, compared to 24 hours or less with T-1 lines.

This type of service is appealing not only for smaller locations that need service prioritization, but it’s also a nice alternative for affordable back-up at any size location.

Robin Gareiss is executive vice president and senior founding partner of Nemertes Research. Click  here for the newsletter archive.