Cox hooks onto Level 3’s IP broadband service

Level 3’s new (3)Packet MPLS Private Network (MPN) service is so novel it even has a customer who’s willing to talk about its benefits. Cox Communications is using the network for peer-to-peer networking with Microsoft. The networking is not unusual; talking about it is.

“Historically, networks that peer don’t talk about it. I don’t go flaunting that I’m direct-peered with Microsoft and Microsoft doesn’t go flaunting that they’re directed-peered with Cox,” said Jay Rolls, Cox’s vice president of data engineering. “We made an exception in this case because of the uniqueness of what we’re doing.”

What they’re doing is using Level 3’s connection to exchange about 400 megabits of Internet traffic “without having to build out the facilities or go to a meet-me location such as neutral co-lo facilities,” said Lisa King-Guillaume, Level 3’s vice president of data services.

Level 3 provides a shared network core for virtual private network [VPN] services. In Cox’s case, this includes a virtual circuit to Microsoft to exchange direct IP traffic.

The VPN answers a geographic challenge, Rolls said.

“We don’t have any backbones up in Seattle and we’re not up in San Jose yet, so to peer with Microsoft we’d have to run a circuit to San Jose or Seattle, which is pretty expensive,” Rolls said. “This lets us virtually interconnect.”

When Cox does eventually run its network to San Jose, it will be able to shut down the Level 3 service, Rolls said.

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t of value to us. It really let us get a leap on this because all the traffic that we exchange with Microsoft is peer traffic, which essentially looks like free traffic. We don’t have to pay transit fees on it,” he said.

Not with Level 3, anyway, which is a big cost reason for taking the virtual circuit route.

“Microsoft is paying transit fees to somebody for all that traffic they were pushing to and from Cox,” said Rolls. “And all the traffic we were pushing from Microsoft, we were paying. We just looked at each other and said, ‘Why should we be paying people? Why don’t we just interconnect?’”

Because geography prevented it. Level 3 fixed that with the virtual connect.

King-Guillaume wouldn’t say how much money Cox and Microsoft are paying for the service, said “it’s about a 40% cost reduction on average across these two customers from a transition solution. Companies such as Cox have a roadmap to provide their own networks and achieve free peering and direct peering with their large constituents. Level 3 has a suite of products that allows them to get there.”

Rolls said that while Cox has a “pretty good backbone,” the Level 3 service will have greater applicability for the “ton of networks who are regional … that really have a problem because they’re never going to get built out nationwide.”