MCI Puts Fresh Face On Private IP Service

The new Private IP reporting packages are broken out into five options, each of which offer customizable user dashboards that provide performance reports of WAN voice and data traffic traveling over the MCI network, said Michael Marcellin, senior director of data and VPN product management at MCI, Ashburn, Va.

VARs selling the Private IP service to new customers will be able to give those customers the option of selecting which of their critical applications get the highest WAN bandwidth priority on the MCI network, Marcellin said.

For example, a VAR might suggest that a Private IP customer assign mission-critical applications such as SAP or PeopleSoft to MCI's second-highest forwarding priority service class, while more general data flows like FTP and e-mail are consigned to lower-priority service levels. All voice traffic runs at the highest service level, he said.

Under the new service level model, Private IP customers purchase support for all their traffic and then prioritize which applications should receive the most bandwidth for an additional charge, he said. MCI would honor those classes of service throughout the network, said Marcellin.

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"Existing customers don't need to move to this new model. But when they renew, they may want to make adjustments for bandwidth depending on their applications," he said.

Greg Praske, CEO of Association Resource Group, a telecom VAR in McLean, Va. said being able to manage application performance all the way out into the cloud is a real plus. The standard reporting packages are free for Private IP customers and Private IP Enhanced Traffic Management customers. Upgraded reporting packages are available starting at $15 per WAN location. A LAN analysis reporting package is in the works, Marcellin said.

Praske said the impending arrival of MCI's LAN reporting package makes sense because "to just cut off [WAN] IP performance reporting at the firewall can create difficulties since you are now almost always delivering service right to the desktop."