AT&T rolls out switched metro Ethernet

AT&T announced the addition of switched metro Ethernet service to its Ethernet portfolio today, living up to its reputation as, “the most aggressive of the [interexchange carriers] in developing an Ethernet portfolio and deploying it nationwide,” in the words of a July 2003 Yankee Group report.

AT&T will offer the new service in speeds ranging from 50 Mb/s to 1 Gb/s and market it to large enterprises in need of high-bandwidth inter-office links for voice, data and video delivery. The service, described by AT&T as “an Ethernet [virtual private network]-type service,” will be available in the same 67 metro areas where the carrier already offers point-to-point private line and Ethernet access services. Eventually, the carrier wants to offer connectivity between these markets for a switched wide area network Ethernet service.

In addition to the bandwidth benefits and simplicity that Ethernet services offer customers, switched Ethernet service, which uses a shared network, offers further cost benefits.

AT&T will deploy the necessary equipment as customers order the service, either with dedicated fiber to the customer premises or, for customers already on AT&T’s local Sonet networks, Ethernet over Sonet.

AT&T will enlist the aid of at least four Ethernet service providers “to get us into tall, shiny buildings,” it said, but the carrier would not name those partners. In addition to the four Ethernet service providers already under contract with AT&T to deploy the service, the company is in discussions with two more, said Franco Callocchia, AT&T Ethernet services director.

AT&T also will offer service level agreements for the new offering based on provisioning and repair times as well as network availability, which will be guaranteed (depending on individual network conditions such as redundancy) at either 99.9% or 99.99%. Breaches of any of those agreements will earn customers discounts on subsequent monthly service charges.

“This is not best-effort-type service,” said Callocchia. When a customer orders 50 Mb/s of switched Ethernet service, he said, “AT&T guarantees that bandwidth.”

Quality of service guarantees initially were considered as a product feature but rejected, a company spokeswoman said. “Because we offer big fat pipes, customers can pump voice, data and video over the same pipe without contention,” she said. As traffic levels rise, AT&T will consider adding quality of service features, but for now, “We haven’t found customers able to fill up a 1 Gb/s pipe.”

Callocchia expects competition to come primarily from those ILECs that have aggressively rolled out Ethernet services. Independent Ethernet service providers pose a secondary threat, he said, followed by other interexchange carriers.

Metro Ethernet services such as the new offering unveiled today represent “an important ingredient in AT&T’s ability to compete on the local level,” said Callocchia.