MCI adds global Ethernet

MCI announced this week that it is adding Ethernet to its global service portfolio, initially offering its customers the chance to extend their Ethernet LANs from the U.S. to parts of Europe and Asia and eventually to the far reaches of MCI's global network.

The Ethernet initiative is part of MCI's Converged Packet Access (CAP) infrastructure intended to leverage a global IP network to bring a series of new services to business customers. This week's announcement is the second set of services to be launched since CAP was announced in July of 2004.

"We are growing significantly, and that growth is being driven by broader IP transformation," said Michael Marcellin, director of VPN and data services product management for MCI. "People are very familiar with Ethernet protocol on their LANs, so it's a natural extension to tie LANs together. From the customer perspective, this has many benefits--you can pick the bandwidth that you need and not be constrained. And we can more easily provision more bandwidth as your needs grow rather than have fairly intrusive installs and upgrades. For our customers, this means much greater ease of use and simplicity."

Moving away from TDM networks eliminates much of the equipment used to groom IP traffic, include CPE, digital cross-connects and manual patch panels, enabling MCI to reduce its costs of operations and to pass those savings along to customers, said Glen Wellbrock, director of network technology development for MCI. The converged IP network is more reliable and efficient as well, because many potential human errors in configuring and changing networks are eliminated, he said. Customers are charged by the megabit and only pay for what they use.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is one of MCI's first customers for the new service and John Hart, director of network infrastructure for CME, said MCI's global Ethernet offering has enabled his organization to continue its conversion from open outcry exchanges to electronic trading.

"We need a way to get pricing information out to our customers and get orders back from them as fast as we can," he said. "We are an Ethernet shop and our customers are as well. This service can take care of needs we have today and will have in near future."

One key attraction, he added, is the ability to turn up more bandwidth as needed without waiting for a truck roll.

The new offering is initially available in 25 major U.S. cities as well as in the U.K., Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. It will be available to major Asian/Pacific Rim hubs this summer.