Listen to the LAN

A prominent Ethernet developer was heard in the last year to say that telcos didn't understand Ethernet technology and didn't understand the local area network Ethernet business, and that this collective misunderstanding would put them out of business. Collectively.

Fighting every fiber of our being to argue with that statement, let us instead use it as an off-ramp to talk about what Ethernet LANs and other native LAN technologies should mean to telcos.

Passionate arguments between the public network operator community and the Ethernet community are nothing new. Since the days when a prominent, yet simplistic and self-absorbed, Silicon Valley magazine (again, an argument for another day) proclaimed "ATM is dead," in a story about the promising development of gigabit Ethernet, things haven't exactly been peaceful.

On the other hand, public network caretakers have themselves been over-zealous about pushing their own technologies-most notably asynchronous transfer mode-into LANs, believing that users would be more than happy to see their native LAN technologies ripped out in favor of good, old standardized telco stuff.

Despite the billion-dollar industries that hang in the balance, these arguments have made for cute diversions while we waited to see how things really turned out. However, such single-minded pursuits on behalf of either industry community will not be cute diversions much longer. Internet-driven convergence is forcing the best technologies of each world into the other.

Ethernet, fast Ethernet and gigabit Ethernet, among other LAN technologies, will find a place in carrier service plans, and, to some degree, in carrier infrastructures, where they can accommodate short-distance, high-bandwidth server-to-server or switch-to-server interconnections in central offices.

In terms of services, a couple of carriers already offer so-called transparent LAN services based on Ethernet connectivity with their ATM or frame relay architectures. However, carriers also need to understand more of the Ethernet world, particularly the future applications for gigabit Ethernet technology, which is just beginning to come of age.

The next step is for the public network industry to accelerate the development and testing of direct interfaces between their more high-speed transport technologies, such as wavelength division multiplexing and the Ethernet community's technologies.

This will be a key phase in driving the further acceptance of WDM technology in metro, access and LAN/enterprise deployments. Though carriers see most of these market opportunities as an eventuality, they haven't brought much of a windfall yet.

The LAN market for WDM has proved particularly vexing. Some carriers have been spending their time looking for enterprises large enough for their own WDM rings. With the exception of certain high-tech plantations in Washington state or New Jersey, this is a pointless search.

However, if carriers follow new developments in LAN technology a bit closer, they might find another way to crack the market for WDM in the enterprise. For instance, for the last few weeks, ADVA Optical, a vendor thus far devoted to high-speed enterprise solutions, has been shopping a point-to-point WDM strategy to address LAN configurations such as cross-town banks that need to swap huge loads of mission-critical information.

Perhaps there aren't so many enterprises ready for that solution either, but there are enough that carriers in every region of the country should take notice.

The public network industry will continue to have trouble bringing inherently expensive and complex high-speed technologies to the desktop. If ATM-to-the-desktop plans did not work well for most carriers and users, then WDM-to-the-desktop may not be worth suggesting for now. Most corporate LAN users will remain committed to Ethernet technologies, and knowing their own value in a competitive service provider environment, they will demand that their carriers have an Ethernet commitment, too.

When a voice from the LAN speaks, it is time for the carrier community to listen.