When procuring new IT services, you often face a choice: start fresh with services and connectivity from a new provider or layer new IT services onto your existing network. If your current MAN and WAN connections are satisfactory, you might be inclined to stick with them. However, other factors warrant consideration.
Not all service providers offer bandwidth. Many VoIP, cloud computing, and other specialized providers focus solely on their specific offerings. They may offer recommendations, but connecting your facility to theirs is your responsibility.
Conversely, some companies offer a broader range of services. These companies, some of which started as telecom carriers, have expanded to include services like colocation, cloud infrastructure, hosted PBX, and Software as a Service. They often prefer to provide both the IT or telecom service and the connectivity. This preference raises questions: Is it for customer convenience? A desire to maximize client business? Or are there other underlying reasons?
The industry term for using your existing network connections is “bring your own bandwidth” (BYOB). This term, frequently used by VoIP, hosted PBX, and cloud computing providers, is more than just jargon.
The performance of cloud services is inherently dependent on the connection between your facility and the provider. Issues with customer-provided bandwidth are so prevalent that providers have become cautious.
Hosted VoIP exemplifies this dependency. Unless you have an on-site IP PBX system, you likely rely on hosted VoIP, meaning the provider manages the switching system and trunk lines. You only need IP phones and potentially a gateway device.
Hosted VoIP can be a boon or a bane, with the same service yielding vastly different outcomes for different companies. This discrepancy arises because voice services, especially VoIP, are sensitive to long-haul network connection characteristics.
Voice, being real-time and susceptible to corruption, suffers from network congestion. Delays, dropped packets, and variable rates impact call quality. Network anomalies manifest as audio distortions, delays that truncate sentences, and intermittent call drops.
Therefore, reputable providers are wary of clients using shared bandwidth DSL or Cable Internet connections for BYOB. While sufficient for email and web browsing, these connections are unreliable for VoIP. Bandwidth fluctuations, lack of voice packet prioritization, and inherent internet unpredictability can severely impact call quality.
Even Cable companies acknowledge this by not routing their bundled telephone services over the internet. Instead, they offer VoIP services that utilize their cable network for connection to their VoIP switching center, bypassing the unpredictable public internet.
Major VoIP providers prefer dedicated SIP trunks for voice and internet services. This control over the WAN connection prevents conflicts between voice and data packets. The right bandwidth, latency, jitter, and packet loss characteristics ensure excellent voice quality and leverage the advantages of hosted PBX.
Similar considerations apply to high-bandwidth cloud connections. Some companies discover their WAN connection to their cloud provider pales in comparison to their previous LAN connection to an in-house data center. Bandwidth and latency are major concerns. Insufficient bandwidth leads to user queuing for cloud access, while latency introduces delays, making applications sluggish. This issue has prompted companies like Amazon to partner with Level 3 Communications and AboveNet for dedicated 1 Gbps and 10 Gbps AWS Direct Connect services for high-performance cloud computing.
Whether BYOB is advisable depends on your existing metro and long-haul network connections and your intended services. Discussing connectivity while evaluating new IT services ensures optimal performance. Expert consultation and a comprehensive range of telephone, cloud, and bandwidth services are available through our telecom broker, Telarus, Inc. A simple online inquiry initiates the process.
