Popularity of MPLS predicted to rise

Popularity of MPLS predicted to rise

MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) is becoming increasingly popular, according to recent research conducted by In-Stat.

The survey revealed that businesses are spending more and more on the technology and, by 2015, expenditure is expected to reach $2.4 billion. This increase comes as further In-Stat research found that Software-as-a-Service spending is also due to rise, hitting almost $800 million by 2015, while wireless data spending is set to increase by 45 per cent between 2010 and 2015 as an increasing number of companies look for long-term investments in their IT networks.

MPLS is an area of wireline data services, which also covers wide area networks (WAN) data transport services, such as DSL, dedicate cables, network-based IP VPN, ATM, frame relay and ethernet services.

MPLS, however, is a particularly high-performance telecommunication network that enables users to direct and carry data from one network node to the next using labels. These labels create 'virtual links' between distant nodes. It appears that the design of the MPLS system has seen expenditure in this area overtake other WAN data transport services.

Greg Potter, an analyst at In-Stat, explained that recent data revealed “the increase in MPLS spending has had a negative impact on some of these other technologies”. He added: “MPLS is protocol agnostic and highly scalable.

“It was designed to provide a unified data-carrying service for both circuit-based clients and packet-switching clients. A number of different technologies were previously deployed with similar goals, like frame relay and ATM.”

The study also predicted that spending on cable data services is to increase by 34 per cent over the forecast period, while on the different sectors, healthcare and social services vertical will experience the largest overall gain, with a $1.2 billion increase in spending predicted over the time period.