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International Private Line (IPL)
Let's say you're part of a multi-national enterprise. Or even a SME that
has a few sales offices dispersed around the globe. You need a secure, yet reliable
way to move voice, video and data traffic to salespeople and partners scattered
across several continents.
How can you do that economically? With an International Private Line
or IPL. An international private line (IPL) is created with dedicated
circuits, private switching arrangements, and/or predefined transmission paths,
whether virtual or physical, which provide point-to-point communications between
specific locations and across national boundaries.
These leased private line circuits are typically priced by distance, bandwidth
or capacity, and other features such as line conditioning.
When searching
for an IPL provider, look for the following:
Be sure the line is protocol transparent, so you're not limited in the type of
data you can transmit.
Full-circuit vs. partnered circuits: (does the company provide an end-to-end circuit,
or do they partner with another company or national telecom?)
Flexible vs. fixed bandwidth solutions. Does the company offer a plan that will
adapt to your bandwidth needs?
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Available speeds
IPLs range in speed from 64 Kbps to T1 (or E1 in Europe),
DS-3 and OC-3. For comparison, a T-1 or DS-1 line
provides the equivalent of 24 standard private lines multiplexed into one line
at 1.544 Mbit/s (million bits per second). A DS-3 in turn multiplexes 28
T-1s at 44.736 Mbit/s.
So, you've got a shiny new IPL linking your far-flung business empire.
What can you do with it? Save money, for one thing.
One of the hottest uses is video conferencing - holding meetings, training or
product demonstrations via data links instead of flying personnel all over the
world to meet face-to-face. Companies with substantial travel budgets could see
significant savings on airfares alone.
Other uses include LAN to LAN connectivity: for example, connecting
the campus LANs of affiliated colleges. Obviously, transferring large batches
of data, such as interactive applications, or high-resolution graphics files,
would benefit highly from using an IPL.
In the diplomatic corps, governments communicate from their capital to their embassies
via IPLs because they are secure, can handle encryption and boast incredibly
high-speed.
The bottom-line is that anyone who needs secure, high-volume data traffic between
international locations would benefit from installing an IPL.
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