As your business expands across multiple locations, a critical question emerges – how do you connect them seamlessly? The growth of your workforce, customer base, and sales rely on a network that ties all of your offices and data together, which is where Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) comes in.
MPLS has emerged as the preferred networking solution for connecting distributed business locations and branch offices where traffic between sites is mission-critical. This technology optimizes and streamlines data routing over long distances, so you can concentrate on business growth rather than complex networking. But with so many MPLS solutions available today, determining the right choice for your organization can be challenging.
In this blog, we’ll explain how MPLS works and its benefits to help you find a best-fit solution for your networking needs.
What Is MPLS? A Brief Definition
MPLS directs data across large telecommunications and data networks. MPLS helps connect geographically dispersed offices by establishing predetermined paths for internet traffic flow called label-switched paths (LSPs).
Instead of making decisions about where to send packet data at each router, as in traditional Internet Protocol (IP) networks, MPLS adds short labels that dictate forwarding decisions. Routers use these fixed-length labels, rather than long network addresses, to route traffic along LSPs. This avoids complex routing table lookups and speeds up IP packet transfer across the network.
What Is MPLS Used For?
MPLS is a highly effective WAN infrastructure for enterprise businesses to connect distributed work environments. Since MPLS networks establish virtual links between headquarters, regional offices, data centers, and cloud platforms across global distances, they enable seamless accessibility and a unified working experience for employees across sites.
MPLS also alleviates network congestion by streamlining routing decisions for IP packets to provide reliable high-speed connectivity. Traffic engineering capabilities allow IT teams to configure the network for usage needs, such as prioritizing essential real-time video collaboration tools for optimal performance. MPLS routing adapts dynamically, maximizing bandwidth availability.
However, while MPLS connects multiple remote branch offices with quality assurance, this technology isn’t without challenges. MPLS can be expensive, difficult to deliver globally, and inflexible, often leading to vendor lock-ins. Plus, as more businesses move workloads to the cloud, traditional MPLS models may not offer the bandwidth and speeds that cloud-based services require for optimal performance.
Working with an experienced technology advisor to determine if MPLS is the best fit for your networking needs – and find a solution that works for your business – is essential for getting the most value from your network.
MPLS Network Designs & Why Backhaul Matters
Hub-And-Spoke MPLS Networks
Many MPLS deployments are built around a hub-and-spoke model. Branch offices connect back to a central headquarters or data center (the hub), where traffic is routed to other sites or out to cloud and internet destinations. This approach is straightforward and can work well when most apps and services live in one centralized location.
Any-To-Any MPLS Networks
An any-to-any design is built to support direct site-to-site traffic without forcing everything through one hub. This can be a better fit when your teams collaborate across multiple locations, or when branch-to-branch connectivity is just as important as branch-to-data-center traffic.
The Backhaul Problem
Backhauling happens when traffic is routed through a central site even though the destination is elsewhere, like a cloud app or another branch. It can create unnecessary latency, and it often shows up when a business becomes more cloud-driven over time. If the network wasn’t designed for that shift, performance can suffer even if MPLS itself is stable.
How The Right Design Depends On Your Traffic Patterns
The “best” MPLS design is rarely about theory. It’s about how your people actually work. If the bulk of your traffic is internal and centralized, hub-and-spoke may be perfectly efficient. If your users rely heavily on SaaS, video, and distributed collaboration, you may need a design that reduces backhaul and gives branches more direct paths to what they use most.
How Does MPLS Work?
MPLS technologies function on the concept of labels and label switching. Here’s a high-level overview:
- When a packet enters the MPLS network, the ingress router gives it a label.
- Instead of analyzing the network layer header, subsequent MPLS routers use this local label to make forwarding decisions.
- Each MPLS router along the LSP replaces the label and sends it to the next router.
- The egress router removes the final MPLS label, revealing the original packet for normal IP forwarding.
Routers define LSPs for source-destination pairs, creating virtual links across the physical network. Advanced MPLS capabilities like traffic engineering optimize paths based on bandwidth, latency, and application priorities.
What Are The Main Components Of An MPLS Network?
MPLS networks consist of specialized routing components that work together to enable efficient packet forwarding based on labels instead of traditional destination-based routing.
Label Switch Routers
Label switch routers (LSRs) are the specialized routers that enable MPLS functionality. These core routers are comprised of:
- Routing protocols like OSPF, IS-IS, and BGP, which share network topology information
- A Forwarding Information Base (FIB) containing label forwarding entries
- Complex routing tables, including an NHLFE table, to map labels to the next hops
LSRs must perform label assignment, label swapping to replace incoming labels, and label disposition to remove labels from exiting traffic.
Ingress Router
This component is the entry point into the MPLS network. Its essential functions include:
- Classifying incoming data packets and assigning them to a Forwarding Equivalence Class (FEC)
- Pushing an MPLS header with a label onto an IP packet
- Routing the packet to the next hop in the label-switched path based on label lookup
Ingress routing is critical because the label determines the packet’s path and priority across the MPLS backbone.
Egress Router
The egress router is the exit point from an MPLS network. This component works by:
- Stripping off the MPLS label header as IP packets leave the MPLS backbone
- Using the original packet’s network layer header to make a forwarding decision
- Routing MPLS packets toward the final destination IP address
Egress routers enable the integration of the MPLS backbone with standard IP routing behavior outside the domain.
Forwarding Paths
Label-switched paths (LSPs) are the end-to-end MPLS tunnels for specific traffic flows. LSPs use forwarding and transit routers to define paths for packets to reach network addresses. Advanced MPLS capabilities build on these fundamental components to enable traffic engineering, virtual private networks (VPNs), and other flexible networking.
MPLS Service Types: What You’re Actually Buying
MPLS The Technology vs MPLS The Service
MPLS is a traffic-forwarding technique, but most businesses don’t “buy MPLS” as a standalone concept. They purchase an MPLS-based WAN service from a provider. That service bundles connectivity, routing, management, and performance options into something your IT team can operate at scale.
Common Enterprise MPLS Service Models
Most MPLS deployments are delivered as managed services that connect multiple sites under one logical network. Depending on your needs, you may see options that emphasize site-to-site connectivity, segmentation between business units, and predictable application performance across locations.
Managed vs Co-Managed Designs
Some organizations prefer a fully managed model where the provider handles most of the routing, monitoring, and change requests. Others want co-managed control so internal IT can move faster. The right model depends on how much in-house networking expertise you have and how quickly your environment changes.
What To Clarify In The Proposal
When evaluating MPLS service options, it helps to confirm what is included beyond the circuit itself: device responsibilities, monitoring, reporting, escalation procedures, and how change requests are handled. These details often shape the real day-to-day experience more than the marketing language does.
7 MPLS Benefits For Businesses
MPLS has established itself as the standard for connecting corporate point-to-point locations where network traffic between regional offices, data centers, and more is mission-critical to business success. An effective MPLS network offers benefits such as:
Higher Network Performance
One of the biggest drivers for adopting MPLS services is the need to improve network performance. By streamlining IP routing inside the network through fixed-label paths, MPLS offers reduced network congestion, faster speeds, and lower latency to optimize the user experience when accessing business applications.
Efficient Multi-Site Connectivity
MPLS connects distributed offices and infrastructure across metro or global distances. Standard IP VPN tunnels isolate traffic between sites, enabling seamless data and workspace sharing between locations for more efficient operations.
Improved Team Productivity
Quality connectivity can keep your employees productive by ensuring access to applications and collaboration tools with speed and reliability. Prioritizing business-critical network traffic like voice and video prevents lag and friction.
Stronger Customer Experiences
Fast network performance allows support teams to deliver responsive services and support to external customers. By improving connectivity overall, MPLS also minimizes page load delays and application errors that can frustrate users accessing your services online.
Enhanced Security
MPLS connections keep your company’s sensitive information safe across network links. They enable encrypted site-to-site VPN connectivity and hide forwarding paths through labels to prevent bad actors from accessing your data.
Simplified Scalability
The flexible architecture of MPLS simplifies network growth to accommodate regional expansion as your organization grows, enabling IT teams to add new sites by defining label-switched paths to newly integrated locations.
Better Traffic Management
MPLS offers advanced traffic engineering capabilities for the insightful handling of data flows. The network analyzes usage trends to route different application traffic types efficiently based on business priority for maximum resource utilization.
QoS & Classes Of Service
Why QoS Matters In Real Networks
Not all traffic is created equal. A file download can tolerate a little delay. A VoIP call cannot. The moment you introduce voice, video conferencing, virtual desktops, or real-time transactional systems, the network needs a way to keep those experiences stable during busy periods.
What “Classes Of Service” Really Means
In many MPLS services, traffic can be categorized into priority levels. These are often called Classes of Service (CoS). The goal is simple: make sure business-critical traffic gets predictable performance, especially when bandwidth is constrained or the network is under pressure.
The Metrics That Affect User Experience
When teams complain that “the network is slow,” it often comes down to a few practical performance factors:
- Latency: how long it takes data to travel end-to-end
- Jitter: how much that delay varies over time
- Packet loss: how often data has to be resent
MPLS can help reduce disruption here, especially when QoS policies are configured correctly and aligned with your actual applications.
QoS Only Works End-To-End
QoS is not just a carrier setting. It needs to be consistent across your environment. Your LAN, Wi-Fi, firewalls, and edge routing all play a role. If any part of the path ignores priority markings or introduces congestion, the user still feels it. This is one reason why MPLS planning should start with your application requirements, not just bandwidth numbers.
MPLS Costs, SLAs & Contract Terms: Why It Gets Expensive
What Typically Drives MPLS Cost
MPLS costs are influenced by practical factors like site locations, bandwidth needs, circuit availability, and redundancy requirements. Pricing can also change based on how much performance control you need, especially if you want traffic classes or higher service tiers.
The SLA Questions That Actually Matter
Many providers offer service-level commitments, but you want to confirm what is being measured and how it’s enforced. Depending on the provider and region, SLAs may include availability targets and restoration commitments. Some providers may also reference performance metrics. The key is to understand what’s contractually guaranteed versus what’s best effort.
Contract Terms That Can Create Lock-In
MPLS is often deployed under longer agreements, and that’s where costs can become sticky over time. If your footprint is likely to change, it’s worth looking closely at terms related to upgrades, site adds, disconnects, and change fees. Flexibility matters if you are growing, consolidating offices, or shifting more workloads to the cloud.
Why “Cheaper” Can Become More Expensive
A low monthly quote can still create high operational cost if support is slow, change requests are painful, or visibility is limited. When you compare providers, look at the total experience: performance, responsiveness, and the ability to adapt as your environment evolves.
MPLS In A Modern WAN: SD-WAN, Internet Underlays & SASE
Why Modern WAN Strategy Is About Mix
Most organizations are not choosing between “MPLS” and “everything else.” They’re choosing a WAN strategy that balances reliability, cost, cloud access, and security. For many, that means combining multiple transport types and using policy-driven control at the edge.
MPLS-Only WANs Still Have A Place
MPLS can still be a strong fit when predictable site-to-site performance is essential and the environment is stable. Businesses running latency-sensitive voice and collaboration across fixed locations often value the consistency and controlled behavior MPLS can provide.
Hybrid WAN: MPLS Plus Internet Plus SD-WAN
A hybrid approach is common because it blends strengths. MPLS can carry the most critical traffic, while broadband or dedicated internet access adds capacity and flexibility. SD-WAN can then steer traffic dynamically based on application needs, link health, and business priorities. This is often how organizations reduce cost pressure without sacrificing performance where it matters most.
Where SASE Fits In
As cloud adoption grows, many businesses also rethink security delivery. Secure access service edge (SASE) is a model that combines networking and cloud-delivered security capabilities so users and sites can access applications safely without forcing everything back through a central data center. For distributed teams, this can improve both user experience and operational consistency.
MPLS vs Traditional IP Routing: Which Is Faster?
Traditional IP Routing
In traditional IP routing, each router along the network path examines a packet’s destination IP address and consults its routing table to determine the next hop. This process is repeated at every router, leading to delays caused by multiple lookups and varying routing decisions. The inefficiency increases with network complexity, affecting speed and reliability.
MPLS Label Switching
MPLS eliminates the need for repetitive routing lookups by assigning fixed labels to packets at the network’s entry point. Instead of analyzing the destination IP at every hop, routers use these labels to determine the next hop efficiently. This approach ensures a predefined, optimized path through the network, reducing processing time and improving overall performance.
Why MPLS Is Faster & More Efficient?
- Reduced Latency: Since routers don’t need to perform complex lookups, packets move faster through the network.
- Optimized Routing Paths: MPLS establishes the shortest or most efficient route, reducing unnecessary detours.
- Quality of Service (QoS): MPLS allows traffic prioritization, ensuring that real-time applications (e.g., VoIP, video conferencing) receive the necessary bandwidth.
- Lower Packet Loss: With a dedicated path and traffic engineering capabilities, MPLS reduces congestion and enhances network reliability.
By replacing traditional IP routing with a more structured, label-based approach, MPLS significantly boosts network efficiency, making it an ideal choice for businesses that require high-speed, low-latency, and reliable connectivity.
MPLS Migration Checklist: What To Plan Before Deployment
Step 1: Map Sites, Users & Applications
Start with the basics: how many locations, how many users, and which applications are truly business-critical. A strong MPLS design is driven by the needs of your traffic, not generic bandwidth rules.
Step 2: Define Performance Requirements
Clarify what “good performance” means for your environment. For voice and video, stability matters as much as speed. For cloud apps, direct paths and reduced backhaul can be the difference between smooth and frustrating.
Step 3: Plan For Resiliency From Day One
If uptime matters, redundancy needs to be part of the initial plan. That might mean secondary circuits at key sites, diversity of last-mile access, and clear failover behavior, especially in hybrid designs.
Step 4: Set A Practical Rollout & Cutover Approach
Network deployments often involve lead times, coordination, and testing. A phased rollout can reduce risk, especially if you pilot the design at a few representative sites before scaling it across the business.
Step 5: Validate With Monitoring & Ongoing Optimization
The best WANs improve over time. Once the network is live, visibility and reporting help you confirm whether policies are working as intended and where adjustments can unlock better performance or lower cost.
Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) FAQs
What Types Of Businesses Benefit Most From MPLS?
MPLS is often a good fit for multi-site organizations that need predictable performance for critical traffic, especially when site-to-site connectivity and reliability are top priorities.
Is MPLS Better Than SD-WAN?
They solve different problems. MPLS provides controlled transport, while SD-WAN provides policy-driven control across one or more transports. Many businesses use both in a hybrid WAN.
What Should We Ask Providers When Comparing MPLS Quotes?
Ask what is included beyond the circuit, how performance is supported, what visibility and reporting you get, what the support process looks like, and which contract terms affect flexibility over time.
Why Does MPLS Feel Slower When We Move More Apps To The Cloud?
If cloud traffic is forced through a central site, you can introduce unnecessary distance and congestion. A modern design often reduces backhaul by adding direct paths and smarter traffic steering.
How Long Does It Take To Deploy MPLS?
Deployment timelines depend on site locations, circuit availability, and how much change is required at each site. Planning a phased rollout usually reduces disruption and risk.
Can We Keep MPLS And Still Reduce Costs?
Often, yes. Many organizations optimize cost by keeping MPLS for the most critical traffic while adding other transport options for additional capacity and flexibility.
Do We Need To Redesign Our WAN To Adopt SASE?
Not necessarily. SASE is often introduced alongside broader WAN modernization, but the right approach depends on your users, your application mix, and how you currently enforce security policies.
When Does It Make Sense To Replace MPLS Entirely?
It can make sense when you need faster change cycles, broader geographic flexibility, and a cloud-first access model, and when you can meet performance requirements through alternative transports plus strong traffic steering and security.
How CommQuotes Can Help You Make The Right Choice
MPLS offers multi-location businesses more agility through fast, reliable network connectivity. But with so many networking options available today, choosing the right MPLS solution to meet your organization’s unique needs can be challenging.
Luckily, working with a trusted technology advisor like CommQuotes can help. For over a decade, we’ve helped businesses navigate the crowded technology landscape to find best-fit IT solutions with agnostic advice and true advocacy. We’ll leverage our longstanding relationships with top MPLS providers to ensure you get the networking solutions that best fit your business – with the best pricing and client experience possible.
To learn more about how CommQuotes can help you find the right MPLS or private WAN solutions, reach out to our experts today!
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