Some users need more bandwidth than a T1 or an E1 channel can provide, but cannot afford the expense or do not need the bandwidth of T3 or E3. Equal-cost multipath (ECMP) is one way to achieve a bandwidth greater than DS1 service without going to the expense and infrastructure required for DS3 service. MLFR is commonly used as an alternative to ECMP to deliver NxT1 service. Cost-analysis of NxT1 versus DS3 service typically imposes a practical limit of 8xT1 service; that is, aggregation of no more than eight T1 or E1 connections into an MLFR bundle.
This implementation of MLFR logically aggregates up to eight T1 or E1 connections into a single virtual connection, known as a bundle, to a given customer site. The connections can terminate at a CPE (Figure 5) or a Multilink Frame Relay bridge (Figure 6).
Figure 5: MLFR Aggregation of T1 Lines into a Single Bundle
Figure 6: Terminating the Bundle at an MLFR Bridge
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