Business Broadband: The Answer to Your Networking NeedsBusiness Broadband: The Answer to Your Networking Needs

All enterprises should be making the most of business broadband (BB) Internet transport services. BB will enable cloud networking and seamlessly connect an enterprise's users together while replacing much more expensive and complicated technologies like MPLS. After all, BB connects you to the Internet, is low cost, ubiquitous, and no more complicated than your home broadband service. Isn't it?

In this article, we review the place of BB in meeting your network needs and highlight some of the areas that enterprises should consider as they assess the use of BB within their networking strategies. It's easy to be too ambitious and simplistic about BB.

First, some level setting. When we talk BB, we're referring to Internet network transport based on technologies used in delivering your home broadband service -- e.g., cable and xDSL. Service providers add the "business" in front of "broadband" to market this as an enterprise rather than consumer service. It remains as a direct connection to the Internet usually provided as a bundled service and with some form of onsite terminating device. Available speeds can vary from location to location, and, for a single BB circuit, actual speed can in practice vary as BB is often contended (i.e., the volume of users/data can affect the speed of service you get).

Here, we draw two important distinctions with other Internet transport technologies. BB is not the same as dedicated Internet access (DIA), through which you get your own dedicated access for a more robust Internet transport service, often at a higher price and speed, and always required for the highest speeds (think 100 Mbps and up). Usually, but not always, DIA is higher cost than BB, and DIA offers other benefits that we touch on later. Nor is BB wireless broadband. Wireless broadband connectivity leverages the same concept as the data to and from your cell phone but, in this case, is connecting a static site to the Internet via a wireless service provider's network. Wireless broadband speeds are usually but not always lower than BB, and unlike BB there is often a linkage between the volume of data sent across the link and the monthly charge.

Count BB In
Now that we know where BB sits, the important opening statement is that BB will increasingly feature in enterprises' networking strategies. "Internet first" networking makes sense given the huge shift to cloud services. No longer are applications and data largely at company sites and data centers. Having a "closed" network -- to which MPLS was particularly well suited -- no longer meets enterprise needs. Going via the Internet does. BB is a relatively low-cost option for some of the required connectivity. With the advent of software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN), the assertion, with a degree of justification, is that BB circuits, singly or several at a time, can replace more established enterprise network transport.

MPLS is dead; long live BB. Not quite. Yes, MPLS is in decline, probably terminal, but that can be argued for everything -- "nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes." However, the rate of decline is exaggerated and for many enterprises the robust, reliable connectivity provided by MPLS will have a place for some time to come. An enterprise's networking "use cases" will directly affect the migration away from MPLS and the use of BB. For example, if you are a retail-centric organization with numerous locations all demanding relatively low networking bandwidth, then capitalizing on what BB can offer is much easier than for an enterprise that has fewer sites but each with very high bandwidth or availability requirements.

For BB, performance SLAs are usually best efforts only, but provisioning service-level metrics with financial credits for failure are more realistic to secure. This is useful as provisioning SLAs are often more material to enterprises using BB than SLAs for performance. If you want performance SLAs with teeth you should be considering DIA services for which you can negotiate effective arrangements. That said, SD-WAN provides for performance gains and increased opportunities to prioritize applications so that the impact of failure is lessened. This arguably reduces the need for the stringent performance SLAs with credits and remedies demanded and provided with, say, MPLS.

Previously, BB had most utility for small branch locations, where other services couldn't be cost justified and bandwidth demand was low, and/or as a separate circuit at sites to offload non-critical Internet access. The need to access cloud services via the Internet and SD-WAN type solutions have dramatically increased the utility of BB. SD-WAN is a major enabler in the increased use of BB. In addition to the performance gain already mentioned, SD-WAN allows more effective switching between circuits, as well as the use of multiple circuits, to meet demand. This includes more easily putting BB alongside MPLS and other transport technologies, if nothing else allowing a more measured and incremental growth in the use of BB.

So, where's the catch?

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If you are global (or even regional) in nature, no single service provider will be able to provide the lowest cost BB to all your locations. In fact, for some locations it's likely that service providers will not be able to provide BB at all. Managing the number of service providers is a cost versus complexity trade-off. Unless having one service provider to manage (aka one throat to choke) is your primary requirement, you should plan to engage with several as a minimum. Aim to create a portfolio of cost-effective, trusted providers.

Additionally, you should expect to have some "exceptions" where local service providers fill gaps based on cost, coverage, or speed grounds. If a single provider is really what you want, note that this can (and will) come at a significant cost premium with a total cost differential that few enterprises would want to leave on the table. Interestingly, DIA is more suited to single provider provision as traditional carriers are better able to rely on their own infrastructure to provide "on-net" service and see greater potential to justify their "value add" given the higher price of DIA.

Before you cry foul, we are aware of the "aggregators" that some see as the panacea to their Internet transport management woes (read our previous No Jitter post, "Will Broadband Aggregation Reach Critical Mass This Time?"). Unfortunately, for BB (and DIA for that matter), the challenges relating to cost, coverage, and speed still apply with aggregators -- as do some new challenges around thinner account teams and, as yet, less flexibility in establishing contracts.

Much to Think Through
You must consider the challenges of applying enterprises' traditional heavy-duty master service agreements and schedules with some service providers that are used to simply using service order forms. Plus, the underlying BB providers (used by aggregators or via carriers' wholesale arrangements) are not used to or willing to have enterprise terms and conditions cascaded down to them, even if the precedent, time, and appetite existed for your chosen provider(s) to attempt this. Extensively using BB involves recognizing and accepting more contractual/commercial risk -- for example, don't waste time trying to cascade terms down to all underlying providers, but rather work with your providers on the "art of the possible" obligations that are most likely to affect service.

Variable performance parameters such as delay and jitter are also potential problems with any service that is largely delivered via the Internet. With contended access, very location dependent offerings, and asymmetric upload and download speeds, BB performance is an issue to consider. Most affected will be delay-sensitive applications such as voice and video. The counter to this is the general user experience of Skype and other such services over own home broadband. Service can be affected but can be "good enough" and user expectation (less concern about interruptions) has opened the way to putting such services over BB. Again, the impact of SD-WAN for improved performance is relevant here. That said, there will always be greater risk of poor performance, particularly in times of Internet congestion.

For higher quality services, the case for using BB becomes more fragile. BB uplink speeds are constrained to a few megabits per second in many areas. In China, for example, BB speeds are limited to 1 Mbps upload. The experience for some users may not be adequate compared to those blessed with the highest-speed BB. While applications can be prioritized, they can still have an impact on other services.

Bandwidth (i.e., circuit speed) is another issue to think through. The available speeds for BB are highly variable globally, regionally, and in the same country. As mentioned, some countries have severe limitations that immediately drive enterprises to use DIA for Internet transport. In other cases, even in areas with 50 to 100 Mbps BB, and more so where available speeds are 5 Mbps, 10 Mbps, 20 Mbps, etc., the available maximum uplink speeds are the primary constraint, the BB circuits are simply not up to the total bandwidth demand. Here, the DIA option may need consideration. In procuring your BB, you need to be flexible in what you ask for and what you are prepared to use. Asking for a standard speed globally won't work. You need to understand what your minimum uplink speeds are and as a first step focus on that; thereafter you can also explore what higher speed services are available. This requires more complex analysis and assessment of where BB might work for you.

Ultimately, to maximize the use of BB, an effective SD-WAN solution is a pre-requisite. Many enterprises are not there yet. There are pitfalls in SD-WAN solution selection, harmonization of implementation with your transport acquisition, and in considering how best to execute on your network transformation. You may also have existing contract spend or circuit obligations that will potentially affect transition, although the ever-growing bandwidth demand may make BB deployment possible on "cost avoidance" grounds -- for example, to avoid perpetuating or increasing spend on MPLS.

Overall, the extra planning and analysis is likely to be worth it, aswill the change in practices to accommodate multiple and different suppliers. The variability in BB availability, performance, speed, SLAs, and contracting should not prevent you considering extensive use of BB as part of your network transport portfolio. With BB being an order of magnitude lower cost than MPLS or DIA circuits (often lower-bandwidth circuits) the cost control opportunity can be very significant.

Mark Sheard is managing director TC2(UK). Based in London but working globally, Mark is part of TechCaliber Consulting, LLC, a global IT and telecom consultancy that advises the world's largest companies on transformational strategies for reducing their costs for telecom and IT products and services. Mark can be reached at [email protected].