project140
join:2006-05-26
New Philadelphia, OH
| MPLS Network for Multi Office
I work for a company in Ohio with 13 office around the state. We have offices in some bigger cities including Mentor, Dublin, and Columbus. We currently have Internet T1's at each site with VPN connections between sites. Each office has 20-70 people. We are looking at getting VoIP eventually. So that said, we are looking at MPLS solutions. We had a nice quote from Qwest that has expired but gave us Internet Gateways at each site. We just got a quote from XO that gave us 2 internet gateways at Dublin and Mentor. They would each be 10Mb connections. The other offices would route all internet traffic through those 2 sites. Our traffic usually doesn't exceed 1Mb/s at our smaller offices. However, I really don't like the idea of having 2 points of failure for internet. I brought these concerns up to my boss and he seems to defend the offering like its out last and only hope.
What experiences have others had with various multi office mpls solutions? |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| two more interesting questions might be how many months does it take to fix the billing from XO, and what's your experience with the repair staff? Complex network services from XO are like a trojan horse -- the boss lets it in because the price looks good, and the staff is left to deal with the consequences. |
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project140
join:2006-05-26
New Philadelphia, OH | That's good to know. I'm the one that gets the call when the connections go down.
I should probably note that the 2 sites with 10mb connections are ethernet connections. |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| Note that I didn't mention anything about their services not working. Their 10M ethernet actually works pretty well. My comments were about billing and repair support. Relative to the MPLS, you should definitely call references for this type of service regardless of carrier. |
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cooldude9919
join:2000-05-29
Cape Girardeau, MO
clubs: | reply to project140
We have sites in dublin, columbus, and findlay all with time warner fiber. Not sure if time warner services all of your areas, but you may want to consider checking into them also. |
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project140
join:2006-05-26
New Philadelphia, OH
| We actually just got a quote from Time Warner Communications. They quoted out fiber in New Philadelphia and Dublin with Advantage pack coax at the other sites (8mb/1.5mb). We are a bit leary about the business class coax though since it is a shared node. But I'm pumped about the fiber. I like that quote much better than the xo quote. |
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cooldude9919
join:2000-05-29
Cape Girardeau, MO
clubs:
| said by project140  :We actually just got a quote from Time Warner Communications. They quoted out fiber in New Philadelphia and Dublin with Advantage pack coax at the other sites (8mb/1.5mb). We are a bit leary about the business class coax though since it is a shared node. But I'm pumped about the fiber. I like that quote much better than the xo quote. Honestly on the coax you will most likely get your speed 95% of the time. We have coax at tons of site and for what it is, it is pretty good.
If you are that worried about the coax, is the fiber out of your price range for all of your sites? Ive gotten 5mb/5mb fiber for less than $~700 and ability to get 10mb for less than $~900. You should be able to get the same or better than that with as many sites as you have. |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| reply to project140
be careful ... you're being tempted by the siren song of price. woooooo~~~ low price woooooo~~~ higher speed woooooo~~~ long term contract wooooo~~~ bad service, support, maintenance and billing! woooooo~~~ time to update your resumé.... |
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project140
join:2006-05-26
New Philadelphia, OH
| I'm definitely not one to buy the snake oil. We can't get fiber at all of the locations. Most of them are to rural. I'm not the one that will make the final decision. I have some influence but not much. the contract is going to be 36 months. same as the contract for mpls quotes. |
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cooldude9919
join:2000-05-29
Cape Girardeau, MO
clubs:
| reply to project140
Just be careful how long you lock yourself in with certain technology. Keep in mind the 3 year contract and how those services will look in 3 years. I am always hesitant on signing anything that long for copper technologies. Be sure to talk your upgrade options through with the providers. |
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hottboiinnc
ME
join:2003-10-15
Cleveland, OH | reply to project140
Time Warner communications is NOT Time Warner cable. They only share TW as the name.\
TWC does business to business using Business Class as the name after TWC. |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO | Time Warner Telecom renamed itself to tw telecom back in July. |
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