While telecom service providers have jumped into the fray with managed VPN services across their own networks, solution providers say that in many cases an offering that can support a variety of technologies and carriers is more appealing to customers.

Solution provider Virtela Communications, which launched and began offering flexible, managed VPN services in mid-October, is betting that's the case. The start-up, based here, offers managed services that can terminate at the point of presence (POP) or the customer's premise, can be implemented over different carrier networks and offer advanced security for the enterprise. Virtela also can provide customers with secure videoconferencing and site-to-site voice services over the same network.

Vab Goel, Virtela's chairman and CEO, said the company's focus is on a consultative sale. Engineers visit each site to determine the most efficient setup for a customer, rather than trying to squeeze that customer's needs into a prepackaged set of services, he said.

"We will support every carrier out there," said Goel, adding that Virtela can support DSL and cable modems as well as traditional private lines and dial-up connections.

That kind of flexibility is crucial, said David Morken, president of Bandwidth.com, a solution provider based in Durham, N.C.

Bandwidth.com resells VPN services from carriers but also provides custom VPN setups for customers. In a cost-conscious environment, Morken said Bandwidth.com can secure the cheapest connection for each customer site among a variety of carriers and then roll out a VPN solution at each location.

Virtela's Goel says the company's engineers visit each site to determine the most efficient setup for a customer.

"Being able to source across all carriers is a fundamental that's been missing," he said.

With companies on heightened alert after the Sept. 11 attacks, spreading coverage among a number of carriers is an added security measure, Morken said. That way, if one carrier connection goes down, chances are several other offices may still be online. "We've got a saying around here: Why put all your nodes in one basket?" Morken said.

Virtela's support for both POP- and customer-premise-based VPN solutions, along with its services' ability to integrate with a variety of carrier networks, gives integrators the best of both worlds, said Jeff Wilson, an analyst at Infonetics. With a customer-premise-based solution, traffic is decrypted at the site,something security-conscious customers are looking for. Also, a POP-based solution is easier to upgrade and provision, he said.

A robust service-level agreement from Virtela opens the door for companies to run realtime applications over an IP VPN, which they may have been hesitant to do before for performance reasons, Wilson said.

Although Virtela officially launched last month, the company has been servicing a number of customers, including AT&T Wireless, for about a year, said Goel. The company received a total of $75 million in funding from RCA Security, Symantec, Juniper Networks and a number of venture capital firms, he said.

Virtela is also recruiting a select number of solution providers to resell its services, Goel said. The company plans to offer channel partners discounts of 25 percent to 40 percent and can help acquire last-mile connections, he said.

Wilson said Infonetics is projecting that revenue from VPN services, along with the accompanying Internet access, will be $10.7 billion this year and reach $41 billion by 2005. Without the IP revenue included, services will account for revenue of $5.6 billion in 2001 and $31.6 billion in 2005, he said.