Counting on quality: MCI's holistic view of Internet VPNs gives customers guarantees

Customers don't like to gamble when sending data over the Internet. So to prove its virtual private network services are a sure thing, MCI is laying its cards on the table.

MCI, confident with its newly upgraded 622 Mb/s Internet backbone, is guaranteeing subscribers one day of free service if they experience more than 10 minutes of downtime on any dedicated access service. The carrier even is posting its VPN performance statistics on the Web at www.traffic.mci.com. Customers and competitors can scope out real-time latency and packet delivery stats for any route on the MCI network.

It's all part of MCI's "Quality Counts" program for internetMCI VPNs, which aims to raise the benchmark of VPN service performance with a holistic approach, according to the carrier. MCI says its competitors offer different guarantees for different services rather than one number to live up to. "Our confidence comes from our architecture," said Howard Hempenius, senior manager of Internet marketing at MCI. "It's a dare to compare."

"They're taking service-level agreements out of the lawyer's office and putting them into practice," said Dan Taylor, director of telecom research at The Aberdeen Group.

InternetMCI VPNs feature global roaming in more than 50 countries, made possible via MCI's partnerships with service providers such as Concert Communications. MCI's merger with WorldCom also will make extra coverage and infrastructure available.

Does MCI expect its internetMCI VPNs to replace private traffic networks? "The technology is here," said Robert Smith, senior manager of Internet marketing for MCI. "It all depends on the comfort level of the customer."

A spokesman for AT&T said the company welcomes competition in the VPN arena.

Pricing for MCI's public and private VPN data services ranges from $2 to $6 an hour.

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