Ethernet for everyone

Cisco's VDSL solution expands in-building market

Cisco Systems this week will unveil a very high bit-rate DSL product package designed to work over any kind of telephone wiring, giving service providers and building owners a compelling argument for offering advanced converged services in the concentrated building market.

Called Long-Reach Ethernet (LRE), Cisco's solution provides a minimum symmetrical speed of 5 Mb/s over a single pair of wiring at a distance of 5000 feet from its Catalyst 2900 CPE switches, said Shah Talukder, director of marketing for Cisco's building broadband solutions unit.

While the faster speeds are possible with better wiring and shorter distances—for example, the minimum symmetrical rate at 3500 feet is 15 Mb/s—even the worst-case scenario enables high-value voice, video and data services, he said. “The ability to bring broadband into a room changes the business model,” Talukder said.

While its speed and range are impressive, LRE's most attractive feature is that it delivers this performance over any grade of wiring, said Jim Thompson, chief technology officer for Wayport, a building LEC that is testing the system.

“Normally, you need CAT3 or CAT5 wiring to get these kinds of speeds,” he said. “What LRE does is allow us to run it over any grade of wiring, even ungraded wiring.”

This characteristic opens a vast portion of the MTU market that effectively has been deemed untouchable by service providers. With Cisco's LRE, such properties are “low-hanging fruit” for service providers, said Ron Westfall, senior analyst for Current Analysis.

“There are a lot more two-story offices with old wiring in Nebraska than tall, shiny buildings in New York,” he said.

A similar statement can be made for the multi-dwelling unit market. However, LRE's biggest impact may be in the hospitality market—the third prong of the in-building market that Cisco is targeting. It does this by extending LRE to individual rooms and by using its Aironet solution to provide wireless access in congregation areas and between buildings.

“Cisco believes the hotel market alone will be a $1 billion market in three years—and that's just putting stuff in,” said Wayport's Thompson. “We obviously see additional value in offering the services.”

And the potential services enabled represent lucrative opportunities for service providers and hoteliers. While high-speed Internet access may bolster business-traveler occupancy, advanced services such as videoconferencing from guestrooms and video-on-demand can create much-desired revenue streams.

BLECs have dominated the in-building market with oft-proprietary solutions that address the wiring complications, Talukder said. Because LRE works with any wiring, Cisco believes it can attract global service providers into the market because installation and maintenance can be standardized on one platform, he said.

At $400 per port, LRE significantly outperforms asymmetrical DSL and is cheaper than symmetrical DSL, according to Ben Gibson, senior product manager for Cisco.

In addition, LRE gives building owners and service providers a “future-proof” solution without expending capital to upgrade infrastructure, Talukder said. “We're taking a 20th-century infrastructure and providing 21st-century services.”

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