This week Virtela is announcing Ethernet access to its international VPN service, giving customers the potential for higher bandwidth than other access methods afford, as well as the ability to boost bandwidth at will as they need it.

Called Virtela Ethernet Service Fabric, the service allows customers to plug their LANs directly into carrier-owned Ethernet switches in customer buildings, eliminating the need for WAN routers.

Customers buy a minimum of 1M bit/sec to start and can boost the bandwidth at 1M bit/sec increments up to 100M bit/sec, says Vab Goel, chairman and CEO of Virtela.

Access links are provided by metro Ethernet service providers such as OnFiber Communictions and Yipes. In the U.S., and Virtela's network routes the traffic across its backbone, which is made up of bandwidth leased from an amalgam of other service providers. Virtela's network routes traffic to these networks based on their performance and where they reach.

The service can be blended with others offered by Virtela, making it possible for sites to connect to the VPN via other means such as private line or frame relay. The company also supports MPLS service-level guarantees across multiple carriers’ networks by converting quality-of-service tags used by one carrier to those used by the next. This is something most service providers cannot do themselves because they have no network-to-network integration agreements with other MPLS service providers.

Virtela Ethernet Service costs between $1,000 and $2,000 per month, per site, depending on what country the sites are in, Goel says.