"Business-grade broadband connections are good because the service profile -- usually something like 3Mbps down and 1Mbps up -- matches the typically traffic to our remote sites, which tend to pull more stuff down versus post it up," Eaton says.

Today Eaton has Talari appliances installed at four locations with the short-term plan to add 10 more.

At the remote offices the appliances sit between the and the remote office LAN. The T-1 for the MPLS remains attached to the router and the new broadband link -- which is running Eaton anywhere from $60-$90 per month. -- attaches directly to the Talari box. No firewall is necessary because the link tunnels back to HQ.

In use, most traffic still goes over the MPLS links. Eaton says the system is configured to defer voice traffic to MPLS, but the appliance samples for congestion and jitter on both links and can and does route traffic over the broadband links as necessary. Generally speaking, he is seeing broadband picking up about a quarter of all branch office traffic.

Eaton says he justified the purchase on the reliability factor and the support for video and is happy with the returns. Installation was straightforward and, other than a few minor routing issues, went without a hitch.