August 7, 2000

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Full-Feature Managed International VPN Service To Debut

UUnet's UUsecure VPN Total Access will offer bandwidth prioritization, high level of reliability

By Bob Wallace

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orldCom subsidiary UUnet is building what may be the industry's most feature-rich managed virtual private network service. When it launches UUsecure VPN Total Access later this month, UUnet will join the ranks of the few Internet service providers that offer companies both dial-up access for remote users and dedicated pipes for creating site-to-site networks, all in a single service. But UUnet will take its service a few steps further by covering a wider international terrain and including capabilities such as bandwidth prioritization.

UUnet, which supports dial-up access to its 2,500 network entry points, will launch Total Access with dedicated service in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles. By year's end, dedicated access will be available throughout the United States and in 17 other countries. Total Access' bandwidth-management feature will let IT managers prioritize traffic based on available capacity, and they'll also be able to add a broadband connection to their data on servers in UUnet Web-hosting centers. Service-level agreements for Total Access promise high levels of reliability and performance.

"This is the international VPN service to beat," says Jim Slaby, a senior analyst at Giga Information Group. But competitors are moving in fast--Slaby says Genuity Inc. and Sprint aren't far behind with similar offerings.

Companies will pay a monthly fee for Total Access, including equipment, reporting features, and network monitoring. The dial-up charge is $1,500 per month plus $19.95 per month per user; dedicated access pricing starts at $595 per month for a 56-Kbps link.

By moving to the new flat-rate pricing from a price-per-minute dial-access plan, food processing and distribution center builder the Facility Group could cut costs by 35% with the service, says Jim Krochmal, VP of IT at the Smyrna, Ga., company. Krochmal says Total Access' Web interface will simplify overall administration.

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