The many faces of carrier Ethernet

As ethernet becomes a popular data service option in the carrier realm, differing strategies are emerging among service providers as to the best fit for this scalable, efficient and cost-effective technology.

Some of the variation is based on market position: Competitive service providers, for example, have been aggressive in pushing Ethernet as a low-cost attraction to new customers. But even among incumbents, there are different opinions on where Ethernet fits in the product portfolio, how quickly customers should migrate to this new service from legacy frame relay and ATM services, and whether new, lower-speed copper-based Ethernet service fits into the broader deployment plan.

Even in areas where service providers agree — such as Ethernet's potential as the platform for convergence and for value-added services — they face skepticism from industry analysts who have adopted a “wait and see” attitude toward this latest candidate for converged network nirvana.

It is perhaps an indication of Ethernet's arrival in the real world of the public network that what started as a straightforward big bandwidth service is now evolving into a myriad of options and choices, tailored to attract enterprise customers in an increasingly competitive market. Classes of service (COS), service level agreements (SLAs) and more bandwidth options have all become part of the carrier Ethernet picture.

“If you rewind the clock a little bit, metro Ethernet was originally designed for the enterprise market,” said Nimesh Shah, senior director of data product management for business markets at BellSouth. “Then it started to evolve more.”

BellSouth still was serving primarily education, health care and finance with its Ethernet offering, Shah said, but the applications for those sectors started to get more sophisticated, evolving into areas like medical imaging and financial transactions.

“That's when we launched a premium service, with [committed information rate] capability, because that's what they are familiar with,” he said. “Then we continued to penetrate the market more broadly, and Ethernet went from being a Layer 2 networking protocol to moving into access. School systems were using it to support the administration but also for Internet backhaul to connect individual schools and libraries. Then we saw demand down market and focused on how do we expand the market to medium and small businesses, which is where we now offer mid-band service using copper and fiber.”