Virtual Leased Line: Can it Be a Cost-Effective Solution for your Business?

While businesses have been using leased lines for some time now, the virtual leased line is relatively new. The question; is virtual leased line a cost-effective solution for your business’ connectivity and communication needs?

Hybrid work environments, increased collaboration over video calls, and less business-related travel are here to stay, even after the Covid-19 pandemic subsides, if it ever actually will. Shopping has majorly shifted to e-commerce apps and portals that need hosting on secure, stable connections. Better and more stable infrastructure is required to run the show. The demand for stable, high-speed networks is increasing. To solve this issue, enterprises can consider using leased lines.

What is a Leased Line and a Virtual Leased Line?

A leased line is a dedicated telecommunications network line that you lease for a certain duration, typically one to three years, which provides you with the exclusive right to use the line for your applications. However, the leased lines get expensive over long-distance connections because every leg in the path requires a dedicated hardwired circuit (or fibre-optic channel) almost indefinitely.

Virtual leased line (VLL), also referred to as Virtual Private Wire Service (VPWS), has been presented as a solution to address the cost factor of leased lines. It is called virtual because you share a connectivity resource – a privately run MPLS (Multi-Protocol Label Switching) network. MPLS provides you the connectivity to the locations you want to connect without having to commit to line capacity.

Must Read: Difference between MPLS vs Leased Line

VLL technology works similar to leased lines by using an IP network to provide a low-cost, point-to-point Ethernet leased line. It is a secure network as it works on proprietary label switching, and supports IP traffic though the network.

How does Virtual Leased Line (VLL) work?

VLL provides a cost-effective and scalable Layer 2 network solution to connect large cities and remote areas. Traditionally, direct lines were used that connect over the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) network, but they are cost-ineffective and difficult to scale.

A simple example to understand how virtual leased line works is as follows: suppose your company has two offices, one in Mumbai and the other in Bangalore, and you want to connect their LANs with a 100Mbps Ethernet line.

Now, you might imagine this as a single cable laid between Mumbai and Bangalore with a 100Mbps capacity. But in reality, this is how it works:

• A 100Mbps leased line connects your Mumbai office to the network company’s closest data centre.
• Another 100 Mbps line connects your Bangalore office to the network company’s closest data centre to Bangalore.
• A 100Mbps VLL connects the two data centres. The virtual leased line will have the capacity of about 10 Gbps provisioned over the existing MPLS core.

Thus, the leased lines are dedicated to your business, and the one in the middle connecting the two data centres is shared with the promise to make the committed speed limit available when you need it. With MPLS, you get the first refusal on the point-to-point 100Mbps VLL, meaning it is available whenever you require it. When you don’t, other customers can use it.

VLL uses standard virtual leased line RFC (​​Request for Comments) to run the Layer 2 networks, which is governed by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). It is a great way to get consistent speed. Added with DDoS security, the reliability for sharing any information is increased. For businesses, privacy is supreme. Also, given that the network is not always fully utilised, your company can take advantage of the low usage period, making this a cost-effective solution.

Benefits of VLL

1. VLL can act as an extended network function, offering service capabilities for carriers. This means enhanced MPLS technologies can be built to deliver unique services.
2. Connectivity between various networks using Layer 2 protocols is easy.
3. Latency is typically low in VLL networks.
4. The VLL network is easily scalable and needs lower maintenance.
5. VLL typically offers smooth network upgrades without affecting services.
6. The transparency it offers helps carriers to smoothly upgrade networks without affecting configurations on customer networks.

Cost-effectiveness of VLL

As we have seen, both leased lines and VLLs offer similar functionalities, but the latter is more cost-effective. Only a few large organisations can afford true dedicated private circuits. MPLS, the backbone of VLL, is a type of wide-area network (WAN) that is distributed in a full mesh system. The data packets that are transported from one node to the other are labelled at each node to make the router be known until it reaches the destination. This helps VLL providers to cut costs and share the cost effectiveness with the end-users.

In addition to helping companies that connect with VLLs save on the cost of dedicated lines, VLLs can reduce communications charges by replacing long-distance links with a connection to a service provider. Equipment and administration costs are also reduced since a single connection to a service provider can provide access to both the corporate network and the Internet. As a result of these cost savings, VLLs become affordable for most companies.

Enterprises also require scalable solutions that offer high-performing, consistent, and cost-effective connections.

1. A dedicated network leased line that offers all these along with security and productivity tools like Google Workspace, Kaspersky licences, and conferencing solutions.
2. Efficient usage of services that require cloud connectivity, big data crunching, and various other bandwidth-heavy tasks like web-hosting, and HD video conferences.
3. Assured reliability and scalability with Airtel’s pan-India network.
4. Enterprise-grade Service-Level Agreement (SLAs) that ensure services are supported by a dedicated team.

Explore more about Airtel Leased Line Internet Connection.