Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) is on the verge of adoption as a standard, but that will not settle debates about business, technology and philosophy that the protocol raises.
MPLS may be the potion that transforms the public Internet from a best-effort network not good for mission-critical applications to a network that could meet the most stringent business requirements.
But so far, MPLS has not delivered on its promise. Operators and vendors say it is too early to expect significant results, since only a few carriers have implemented the technology and few vendors have standardized on it. MPLS today is just a specification, though the Internet Engineering Task Force is believed to be close to ratifying it as a standard.
In the circa-2000 Internet, MPLS exists as an overlay technology offering the owners better tools for managing their Internet Protocol (IP) networks and their customers' access to premium services.
What network operators do next may define the future of the technology and, to some extent, the future of the Internet. Companies will have to decide between investing in a common infrastructure with no immediate returns--Internet-wide deployment of MPLS and peering MPLS traffic--or investing in a particular project with a clearly defined goal--building a for-profit MPLS overlay network. Either option could terribly slow the Net's development for the next 30 years, or boost the medium's potential to new heights, depending on who is talking.
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