Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS)

Owned by Kelly Evans (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Sept 30, 2022 by Rob Whyte (Unlicensed)
1 min read

When the Peeredge SBC is directly connected to a service provider or customer’s MPLS network, we assign each customer a dedicated MPLS Virtual Routing and Forwarding (VRF) instance.

If there is a network-to-network interface (NNI) connection directly into the 46 Labs data centers, then a dedicated VLAN in the Peeredge data center is connected to each customer’s VRF. The 46 Labs data center subnets (hosting Peeredge SBCs) are advertised into the customer’s VRF via multi-protocol BGP. The customer’s MPLS VRF must contain the IP routes necessary to reach the SIP Trunking endpoints. If a media flow-around design is used, then the IP routes for all IP endpoints (i.e. phones) must also be advertised and reachable in the customer’s MPLS VRF. Since each MPLS customer has a dedicated VRF, MPLS networks are typically considered to be secure.  As such, use the TCP or UDP protocols to communicate with the Peeredge SBC.

If there is no NNI connection directly into the 46 Labs data centers, then the Peeredge SBC can be placed in the Service Provider or Customer network to access the MPLS network.

If there in no NNI connection directly into the 46 Labs data centers, an additional network topology is required to reach the 46 Labs cloud.

Pros

  • Use end-to-end quality of service (QoS) configurations to guarantee high-quality voice calls across the MPLS network. 

  • Support a media flow-around (anchor media disabled) design to optimize the routing of RTP/SRTP media between the customer’s endpoints (i.e. IP Phones) and the Peeredge SBC. 

Cons

  • More expensive than most other network topologies.