Identifying the right service provider is easier said than done. But there are some attributes that can help you in the selection process. Here are some tips to identify the right service provider for your IEPL needs.

Once organisations have understood the power of International Ethernet Private Line (IEPL) and the need for it, they need to choose a service provider who can meet their requirement. Realising the full potential of IEPL means taking this extra step—partnering with the right service provider.

With a single service provider managing the crucial connections to your office, cloud providers, backup facilities, and other locations, it is crucial to do proper research and identify a service provider who can offer the services and features that will be most beneficial to your business.

But how do you identify the right service provider? What are the attributes you should look out for? Here are some tips to identify the right service provider for your IEPL needs.

Extensive Global Network

Your offices, backup facilities, cloud service providers in all probability are likely to be geographically dispersed. If they weren’t, there wouldn’t be a need for an external service provider to connect them. You obviously don’t want to select a service provider who can only connect a part of your locations and want a service provider who can connect all the locations.

Hence, it’s important that the chosen service provider has an extensive global infrastructure with a broad geographic reach, has access to multiple submarine cable systems, has a good terrestrial network, and has multiple cable landing points and points of presence (PoPs) so that this single service provider can meet all your present and future needs.

Scalability

While theoretically IEPL services are scalable from 1 Mbps all the way up to 100 Gbps, not all service providers offer this level of scalability. Many service providers are constrained by their infrastructure to offer only limited scalability.

But the limitations of the service provider should not compromise your company’s growth and ambitions. You don’t want to be locked into a service that won’t easily support your company’s growth or can’t quickly scale up or down with seasonal spikes in business. Hence, the ability of the service provider to scale the services as per your need and be flexible enough to accommodate your requirement is key.

Connectivity to Cloud Service Providers

Direct connectivity to the cloud to speed up cloud-based applications is one of the key use cases for IEPL. Since most organisations have workloads or applications hosted or running from multiple clouds, connectivity to major public clouds is critical.

However, not all service providers have or offer direct cloud connectivity, especially to multiple public clouds. This can be a deal breaker as it will mean relying on multiple service providers. Hence, it’s important that you choose a service provider who offers direct connectivity to multiple clouds, including all the major public clouds.

One-Stop-Shop Solution

Apart from IEPL, organisations have different types of connectivity requirements—from SD-WAN to IP Transit to CDN to meet different requirements. No one wants to deal with different service providers for each type of connectivity need. They need a single service provider who can meet all their connectivity requirements and avoid the hassle of dealing with multiple vendors.

Hence, it’s important that the chosen service provider has the ability to bundle other services such as SD-WAN, IP Transit, IPVPN, and CDN apart from IEPL to meet all your connectivity requirements as a one-stop-shop provider.

Reliability and Security

Reliability and security are key to any type of connectivity and more so in the case of IEPL as it is the preferred form of connectivity for mission-critical and sensitive data transfer. Organisations can’t risk any downtime in connectivity especially when their business is at stake. Advanced monitoring and management features help service providers improve their reliability, security, and performance. However, not every service provider uses these features.

Hence, it's important to check the reliability and security offered by the service provider before deciding to use their services.

Cost-Effective

Cost always plays an important part in any purchase decision, be it for a product or a service. With all other things remaining the same, it becomes the deciding factor in the selection of a service provider. However, many service providers have hidden costs—such as additional charges for scalability or uptime or meeting specific SLAs—that are not overtly visible while making a purchase decision.

Look for these types of hidden costs when deciding on a service provider to avoid any unpleasant surprises in the future. It’s better to go with a service provider who is completely transparent in pricing and doesn’t have any hidden costs, even if they might seem more expensive in the beginning.

SLAs

Service level agreements (SLAs) are critical for any type of service and more so when it comes to critical connectivity requirements. They come in various forms, from uptime to latency to time taken for remediation of issues, to name a few. While all service providers will talk about SLAs, look for specifics within that because that’s what will matter on a daily basis. Look for service providers who offer high levels of SLAs and are transparent with it. That’ll be the difference between a smooth, seamless connectivity and a frustrating experience.

TM WHOLESALE: Your Ideal Partner

TM WHOLESALE’s IEPL services are designed to deliver flexible, scalable, reliable, high bandwidth access solutions for the demanding networks of global carriers, enterprises and hyperscalers to achieve a competitive edge in today’s connected world. With more than 150 cable landing points, 28 PoPs, access close to 30 submarine cable systems, TM WHOLESALE’s IEPL services connect 39 countries across the globe and provide cross-border, end-to-end managed bandwidth and dedicated connectivity at high-speed.

With a global footprint and partnerships with other major global solution providers, TM WHOLESALE can be a one-stop-shop for all your connectivity needs and can bundle other services such as IP Transit, Global Hosting, Global SD-WAN & TM CDN with IEPL.

Besides, TM WHOLESALE offers a seamless service scalability with options to increase the bandwidth from as little as 1Mbps all the way to 100Gbps, so that you pay only for what you need.

In addition, TM WHOLESALE provides unmatched support and high service-level agreements with detailed specific performance guarantees for uptime, latency and other key metrics to ensure optimal performance of business applications and data transfer. TM WHOLESALE is also one of the most cost-effective service providers of IEPL solutions, both in the APAC region and across the world.