An international private backbone is a provider-run network that connects an organization’s offices, data centers and cloud regions across countries and continents over private paths, rather than over the public internet. The provider carries traffic between its points of presence (PoPs) using services such as MPLS, Carrier Ethernet or wavelengths, and commits to availability and performance targets in an SLA. For companies running voice, replication or critical applications between regions, it is the usual alternative to relying on the internet between continents.
At a glance
- A private backbone keeps inter-regional traffic on one provider’s network, or a managed set of partner networks, instead of the public internet.
- It is built from PoPs, private transport between them and local access circuits at each site; the technology mix varies by provider and region.
- Performance is usually more consistent than the internet over the same distance, but only what the SLA states for each region pair is actually committed.
- It is often paired with SD-WAN and local internet breakout, so only the traffic that needs the backbone uses it.
- Physical diversity, especially across subsea routes, has to be verified, not assumed.
What problem it solves
Over long international distances, the public internet is unpredictable. Your traffic crosses several networks, none of which is responsible for the whole path, and routes can change from one day to the next. The result is calls that break up between offices, replication jobs that miss their window and applications that are fast in one country and slow in another.
A private backbone puts one provider in charge of the path between regions. Traffic stays on its network, routes are engineered rather than left to whatever the internet chooses, and the provider commits to numbers for availability and, often, latency and packet loss. It also simplifies the commercial side: one contract and one support process instead of a different carrier and a set of internet tunnels in every country.
How it works
Points of presence. The provider operates PoPs in data centers and carrier hotels in the cities it serves. Your sites and cloud regions connect to the nearest one.
Transport between regions. Between PoPs, the provider carries traffic over its own or leased fiber, including subsea cables for intercontinental routes. Services are delivered as MPLS VPNs, Ethernet circuits, wavelengths or a software-defined fabric on which you order virtual connections on demand. Many backbones combine these by region.
Local access. Each site needs a local circuit to the nearest PoP, sometimes from the backbone provider and sometimes from a local carrier it manages. This middle-mile and last-mile access is often where delays, cost and risk sit, and critical sites usually need two diverse access paths. Inside data centers, the connection is typically a cross-connect.
Cloud and partner on-ramps. Many backbones connect directly to major cloud providers and partner networks through interconnection in data centers, so traffic to cloud regions can stay off the internet.
Classes of service and SLAs. Traffic is typically sorted into classes, such as real-time, business-critical and bulk, which the provider queues differently when links are busy. SLAs usually state availability and time to repair, and often latency, jitter and loss targets for specific region pairs and classes. See the SLA entry for what to check in the wording.
Overlay. Many organizations run SD-WAN over the backbone and local internet links, using the backbone for traffic that needs it and sending general web and SaaS traffic to the internet locally.
When it matters for buyers
- When you expand into new countries. A backbone can bring new sites onto a consistent network faster than sourcing separate carriers in each country, where the provider already has presence.
- When real-time or inter-regional traffic suffers. Voice, video, contact centers and database replication between continents are the most common reasons to buy one.
- When compliance or customers ask how traffic is kept separate. Private transport is one part of the answer, though it is not a substitute for encryption and access controls.
- When a WAN or MPLS contract is up for renewal. Compare a private backbone against SD-WAN over internet, or a mix, on the same region pairs and requirements.
- When an outage exposes shared paths. Two circuits that share a conduit or a cable landing can fail together; diversity has to be designed and contracted.
Our global WAN services overview covers how buyers source backbones and local access across countries.
Questions to ask vendors
- Which of our locations and cloud regions are on-net at your PoPs, and which need third-party access?
- What latency, jitter, loss and availability do you commit to for each of our region pairs and traffic classes, and how are they measured?
- Which subsea cable systems and landing stations carry our traffic, and how do you keep primary and backup paths physically diverse?
- What happens to our traffic during maintenance or a cable cut, and how much notice do you give for planned work?
- Who manages local access in each country, and who is our single point of contact for faults?
- What are the installation intervals for each site, and what construction or build charges might apply?
- Do you support encryption, and does it affect throughput or the SLA?
- How do you protect routing at your interconnection points, for example with RPKI validation and prefix filtering?
How it differs from a private WAN
A private WAN is any wide area network built on carrier services kept separate from the internet, whether it connects three offices in one country or hundreds worldwide. An international private backbone is the long-haul, cross-border part of that idea: the provider network that carries traffic between regions and countries. In practice, a multinational’s private WAN often rides on one or more backbones, with local access in each country. A global WAN services engagement is broader again: it covers sourcing and managing the backbone, local access, SD-WAN and support across all the countries you operate in.
Problems this helps with
- Calls and apps between our offices in different countries are slow or unreliable
- Data replication between regions keeps missing its window
- Every country has a different carrier, contract and support process
- The public internet between continents behaves differently every day
