Connect Every Office on One Private, Secure Network
MPLS private IP networking from Summit Internet links your business sites across Australia and Asia-Pacific with secure, high-performance connections — managed and supported by our Melbourne-based team.
Overview
When your business operates across multiple locations, the quality and security of the connections between those sites becomes critical. Shared internet links, consumer-grade VPNs, and cobbled-together solutions create bottlenecks, security gaps, and management headaches that grow worse as your business grows.
MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) private IP networking solves this by creating a dedicated, private network that connects all your business sites — offices, warehouses, data centres, and remote locations — as if they were all on the same local network. Traffic between your sites never touches the public internet, which means it is faster, more predictable, and inherently more secure.
Summit Internet designs, provisions, and manages MPLS private networks for multi-site businesses across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Whether you need to connect two offices across Melbourne or link a national network of branches to your head office and data centre, our team builds the solution around your specific requirements — using the best available access technology at each site, from fixed wireless and fibre to NBN and 4G.
Key Benefits
Any Access Technology at Any Site
Not every business site has access to fibre, and not every site justifies the cost of a dedicated fibre connection. Summit’s MPLS service supports a wide range of access technologies, allowing us to choose the best option for each location:
- Fixed wireless — ideal for sites within Summit’s Melbourne coverage area
- Ethernet over fibre — for sites requiring guaranteed symmetric bandwidth
- Business NBN — a cost-effective option for smaller branch offices
- 4G mobile broadband — for temporary sites, remote locations, or as backup
- ADSL — where legacy infrastructure is the only option available
This flexibility means every site gets connected in the most practical, cost-effective way without compromising the integrity of your private network.
Consistent, Predictable Performance
MPLS networks support Quality of Service (QoS) policies that prioritise your most important traffic. Voice calls, video conferencing, and critical application data can be given priority over bulk data transfers, ensuring that real-time applications perform reliably regardless of what else is happening on the network. No more VoIP calls dropping because someone started a large file download.
Scalable as Your Business Grows
Adding a new office, warehouse, or branch to your MPLS network is straightforward. Rather than building a new point-to-point connection for every site, MPLS uses a hub-and-spoke or full-mesh topology that makes adding and removing sites efficient. As your business expands — locally, nationally, or into the Asia-Pacific region — your network grows with you.
Centralised Network Management
With all your sites on a single managed MPLS network, your IT team (or ours) has visibility and control across the entire infrastructure. Traffic monitoring, QoS configuration, bandwidth allocation, and fault management are handled centrally, reducing the complexity and overhead of managing separate connections at each location.
Asia-Pacific Reach
For businesses operating beyond Australia, Summit’s MPLS service extends into the Asia-Pacific region. Whether you have offices, partners, or suppliers in New Zealand, Singapore, Hong Kong, or elsewhere in the region, we can extend your private network to keep your international sites securely connected to your Australian operations.
How It Works
MPLS in Plain Language
Imagine your business has five offices. Without MPLS, each office has its own internet connection, and if they need to share data securely, they do it over the public internet — typically through VPN tunnels. This works, but it introduces latency, is vulnerable to internet congestion, and becomes increasingly difficult to manage as you add more sites.
With MPLS, all five offices connect to Summit’s core network, where their traffic is routed through private, dedicated paths using labels (think of them as internal routing tags). Your data moves directly between your sites without ever touching the public internet. It is faster, more secure, and far easier to manage.
How Summit Builds Your MPLS Network
Needs Assessment
Our network engineers work with you to understand your sites, bandwidth requirements, application priorities, and growth plans.
Network Design
We design a topology that suits your business — hub-and-spoke (all branches connect to a central site), full mesh (every site connects to every other site), or a hybrid approach.
Access Provisioning
At each site, we deploy the most appropriate access technology: fixed wireless, fibre, NBN, or 4G. Each access link connects the site to Summit’s MPLS core.
QoS Configuration
We configure traffic prioritisation based on your requirements. Voice traffic gets priority. Critical applications are protected. Bulk data uses the remaining capacity.
Go Live and Manage
Your network goes live, and our team monitors performance, manages changes, and provides ongoing support from Melbourne.
Use Cases
Multi-Site Retail and Franchise Networks
Retail chains and franchise businesses need consistent, reliable connectivity at every location for POS systems, inventory management, and inter-store communication. MPLS connects all your stores to your head office and central systems on a private network, ensuring every location performs reliably and securely.
Professional Services With Branch Offices
Law firms, accounting practices, real estate agencies, and consulting firms with multiple offices need their teams to access shared systems — practice management software, document repositories, CRM platforms — as if they were all in the same building. MPLS delivers this experience with the security that client-sensitive industries demand.
Office-to-Data-Centre Connectivity
If your business runs servers or applications in a co-location facility (such as NEXTDC), MPLS provides a fast, private link between your office and your data centre infrastructure. With Summit’s PoPs in NEXTDC M1, B2, P1, and S1, your office-to-data-centre connectivity is direct and low-latency.
Warehouse and Distribution Networks
Logistics businesses with multiple depots, warehouses, and distribution centres need connected ERP and warehouse management systems. MPLS links these sites securely, with 4G backup available at each location to ensure dispatch operations are never interrupted by a primary link failure.
Healthcare and Aged Care Groups
Medical practice groups, dental chains, veterinary corporates, and aged care providers operating across multiple locations need secure inter-site connectivity for patient records, imaging transfer, and centralised practice management. MPLS provides the privacy and performance these sensitive applications require.
Businesses Expanding Into Asia-Pacific
Australian businesses with operations, partners, or suppliers across the Asia-Pacific region can extend their MPLS network internationally. This keeps cross-border communication secure, fast, and managed under a single service agreement.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is MPLS different from a VPN?
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts your data and sends it over the public internet, which means it is subject to internet congestion, latency variability, and the performance limitations of your internet connection. MPLS creates a genuinely private network path within a carrier's infrastructure — your traffic is physically separated from public internet traffic. MPLS also supports Quality of Service, allowing you to prioritise voice and critical applications, which standard internet VPNs cannot do.
What access technologies can connect to the MPLS network?
Summit's MPLS service supports multiple access types, so each site can use the most practical option available: fixed wireless, Ethernet over fibre, business NBN, 4G mobile broadband, or ADSL. This flexibility means you are not forced into expensive fibre builds at every location.
How many sites can be connected?
There is no practical limit. Whether you are connecting 2 sites or 200, MPLS scales efficiently. Our network engineering team designs the topology — hub-and-spoke, full mesh, or hybrid — based on how many sites you have and how they need to communicate.
Can MPLS support VoIP and video conferencing?
Yes, and it does so particularly well. MPLS supports QoS policies that prioritise voice and video traffic, ensuring these real-time applications perform reliably even when the network is carrying significant data traffic. This is one of the key advantages of MPLS over standard internet connections.
Does MPLS work for interstate and international sites?
Yes. Summit's MPLS service connects sites across Australia and extends into the Asia-Pacific region. Our PoPs in NEXTDC data centres across major Australian cities provide the backbone, and our partnerships extend coverage internationally.
How long does it take to set up?
Deployment timeframes depend on the number of sites, access technologies required, and network complexity. A simple two-site MPLS connection over existing infrastructure can be deployed in weeks. Larger, multi-site deployments with new access builds are scoped and timelined during the design phase. Our team provides a clear project plan before any work begins.
What level of support is included?
Your MPLS network is monitored and supported by Summit's Melbourne-based team. We proactively monitor network performance, manage changes and upgrades, and provide fault resolution directly. Support is included as part of your MPLS service — there are no hidden support charges.
Why Choose Summit for MPLS
Take the first step toward getting connected
Fill out your business details and our team will contact you with the best connectivity or communication solution for your needs.
Flexible Access at Every Site
Most MPLS providers require fibre at every location, which can be expensive and slow to deploy. Summit connects your sites using whatever access technology makes the most sense — including our own fixed wireless network across 500+ Melbourne suburbs. This means faster rollout, lower costs, and no compromises on the sites that cannot get fibre.
One Provider, One Network, One Invoice
When Summit provides your MPLS network, the access links at each site, and your voice and mobile services, you get a single provider managing your entire communications infrastructure. One team to call, one SLA, one invoice. No blame-shifting between providers when something needs attention.
Designed and Managed Locally
Your MPLS network is designed by our Melbourne-based network engineers and supported by our local team. We are not routing your support calls through an overseas helpdesk. When you need a change, an upgrade, or assistance, you are speaking to the people who designed and built your network.
25 Years of Network Engineering
Summit has been building and managing business networks since 2000. Our engineering team has deep experience in multi-site network design, traffic management, and ongoing optimisation. Your MPLS network benefits from over two decades of operational knowledge.
Connect Your Sites on a Network You Can Trust
Secure, private, and managed by our Melbourne team. Talk to Summit about MPLS private networking for your multi-site business.