MPLS Popularity Rising, Spending Set to Spike

Spending on MPLS (multiprotocol label switching) will reach $2.4 billion by 2015 thats according to new research from In-Stat.

MPLS is protocol agnostic and highly scalable,” says Greg Potter, Analyst. 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. Newly collected data tells us that the increase in MPLS spending has had a negative impact on some of these other technologies.”

MPLS directs and carries data from one network node to the next with the help of labels that make it easy to create virtual” links between distant nodes. The jump in MPLS spending is just one prediction in In-Stats new report, US Business Spending by Size of Business and Vertical, 20102015: Wireline Data Services. The report also finds: Frame relay spending will decline 55 percent from 2010 to 2015; spending on cable data services will increase 34 percent over the forecast period; small businesses (20-99 employees) will spend a little more than $6.2 billion in 2012; and the healthcare and social services vertical will experience the largest overall gain, increasing $1.2 billion over the forecast period.

The report includes data for a large number of wireline data services, including ATM, Ethernet, frame relay, cable, DSL, IP VPN, MPLS and T1/T3.