Convert to MPLS and make huge savings

The time has come to wave goodbye to legacy technology

By all accounts, technology has a pretty fast lifecycle. Just think about the mobile phone you owned ten years ago, or the VHS player that took pride of place in your living room just five years before that.

When it comes to technology, it doesn’t pay to be left behind. Imagine if you were still using your Nokia 1110 from 2005. Not only would you be missing out on 3G, 4G and Wi-Fi capabilities, but you would be hard pressed to find a new battery, a replacement charger, or any other parts for repair.

Telecoms technology is about value, efficiency and speed. When a piece of hardware approaches the end of its lifecycle, it’s time to upgrade or risk lagging behind the competition.

Out with the old

The Plain Old Telephone Service (or ‘POTS’) even sounds like a vintage throwback. It was established way back in 1876, and for almost 100 years it was the only telecoms system worth talking about. The service evolved slightly over time until the late ‘80s, when ISDN emerged as a modern alternative to POTS’ operator-based network.

ISDN was able to match the reliability of POTS, but the digital technology resulted in faster connections and better sound quality.

Today, both POTS and ISDN are still very much in play – an extraordinary fact when you think about how much has changed in the world of telecoms over the past few decades. For one thing, we now use VoIP as standard even on our mobile phones, bypassing the need for the copper wire systems and pricey PBX stations of POTS, or the complex circuit boards of the ISDN era.

Yet still many businesses are standing by these old technologies, which are becoming more expensive, less functional and increasingly obsolete.

Convert to MPLS

The telecoms industry as a whole is moving away from legacy technologies and upgrading to cheaper, more scalable solutions such as MPLS.

Although it may be cheaper to simply maintain your existing POTS or ISDN network, and upgrade the PBX hardware every few years, this is the very definition of a false economy.

PBX is a piece of hardware that is no longer being supported in the industry, so although you may be able to buy it, you won’t be able to repair it easily, as spare parts might be difficult to find. As a result, it will become increasingly expensive to maintain over time. As well as this, you won’t be able to make use of the natural advantages that new technologies offer, such as tracking, monitoring and fraud prevention, which come as standard with most MPLS packages.

By moving away from legacy technology and embracing the new, you can make huge savings – up to 70 percent by our estimates.

• Instead of having a PBX in every office or location, you will need to invest in Session Border Controllers (SBCs) to support cross-country calls as well as VoIP enable routers for your offices.
• Instead of buying numerous PSTN lines to manage your inventory, you can use the existing MPLS data network by adding and deploying voice channels to route voice traffic as a data packet across your MPLS network.
• There is less inventory to maintain. In a big corporate environment there may be millions of different voice lines – and each one is costing money to maintain.
• You can create bespoke MPLS packages, which cater to the specific needs of your business.

Conversion caveats

Of course, as with any major systemic overhaul, there are issues to look out for when converting from POTS or ISDN to MPLS.

• First of all, it is important to be aware that while a company-wide conversion will almost certainly reduce your operating expenses, you may be faced with an outlying capital expense which will cancel out any savings in the first year.
• As you are doing these conversions, you have to be aware of your inventory. By converting to MPLS, you are basically creating a whole new network which will work out cheaper in the long run… but only if you remember to switch off the old network. If you are still supporting your out-dated inventory, the addition of a new network means that you will increase your costs dramatically when you should be saving.
• Plan your migration properly. It’s best to start with the big-ticket items and work your way own the list to the smallest lines and the least busy locations. That way you are maximising your savings right at the very beginning of the programme.

Conclusion 

In order to maximise the new technologies and minimise your expenses, you have to understand your inventory, understand your cost and have a thorough migration plan – and this is where a TEM solution can really help.

There’s no nostalgia when it comes to telecoms technology – new beats old every time.

Temforce is a provider of Telecom Category Management SaaS enabling teams to boost their Telecom Management!