Abstract
Ethernet, the protocol that is ubiquitous in enterprise local area networks,
is now being offered by service providers as a metro or wide area service.
These publicly available Ethernet services have been among the communications
market' s fastest growing segments, with carriers enjoying revenue growth in
the range of 30 percent annually as enterprises large and small opt for these
new services that are being offered in an array of speeds and reach.
Public Ethernet offers the chance to tie customer locations together in what
appear to be virtual LANs that can stretch across a metropolitan area, a
region, the nation, or the world. Public Ethernet offers significant
advantages in cost and simplicity and in facilitating convergence- and is
often touted as a replacement for legacy data solutions like private line and
frame relay. This Insight study projects market size, growth, and revenue,
including segmented breakdowns of point-to-point and any-to-any services as
well as by interface levels ranging from 10Mbit/s to the emerging 10Gigabit
standard. This report provides insight into this emerging arena that will
fundamentally shape the communications market of the future.
1.1 Public Ethernet
Ethernet is the world' s dominant machine-to-machine (computer-to-computer)
interface protocol, with interfaces on more than 300 million computers
worldwide- and it is fast becoming a potent force in metro and wide-area
communications.
Public Ethernet is still in an early growth stage. Second only to IP in terms
of growth potential and influence on the communications market, Ethernet has
become an increasingly prominent feature of the national data networking
landscape in the US. As of late 2006, Ethernet services are available from
virtually all major data service providers, including incumbents, second-tier
carriers, and smaller specialized players differentiating themselves by price,
technology, and flexibility.
Until recently, public Ethernet services have generally earned the label
"metro Ethernet." The large majority of Ethernet service has been, and still
is, between points within a metropolitan area. It is only relatively recently
that public Ethernet has become a more widely accepted service available into
the long-haul, though this has not been marketed in any significant way. This
may change in 2007 as major incumbents- particularly AT&T and Verizon- plan to
introduce long-haul Layer 2 virtual private networks (VPNs) in 2007.
INSIGHT' s use of the term "public Ethernet" refers to any Layer 2 public
network carrier service that extends Ethernet beyond the local area network
(LAN) and connects to customers through Ethernet interfaces. Public Ethernet
may be marketed as transparent or native LAN, Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet,
GigE, metro Ethernet, Ethernet private line (EPL), Ethernet virtual private
line (EVPL), Layer 2 virtual private network (VPN), Ethernet access, virtual
private LAN service (VPLS), or a variety of other names. INSIGHT' s definition
does not, however, include routed Layer 3 IP-VPN services, which also carry IP
over Ethernet. Public Ethernet services include relatively longstanding legacy
transparent or native LAN services, whether asynchronous transfer mode
(ATM)-based within the network core or using an Ethernet over fiber (or SONET)
architecture. Our definition also includes newer services from small and large
carriers that variously deliver end-to-end Ethernet directly over optic fiber,
encapsulate Ethernet packets in SONET, or transmit it over dense wavelength
division multiplexing (DWDM) wavelengths or as Ethernet over multi protocol
label switching (MPLS).
Ethernet can be segmented by its speed (<=10Mbit/s; >10Mbit/s-100Mbit/s;
100Mbit/s-1Gbit/s; >1Gbit/s), by the nature of its sale (retail vs.
wholesale), by the region the service covers, and by topology, which refers to
whether the service delivery can be characterized as E-line or E-LAN.
E-line is an Ethernet service structurally similar to a private line. E-line
point-to-point service provides a Layer 2 private line or virtual private line
(VPL) on Ethernet between two locations.
E-LAN service, by contrast, structurally resembles a LAN. It provides the
potential for multipoint-to-multipoint Layer 2 service. Each user network
interface (UNI) in an E-LAN service connects to a multipoint Ethernet virtual
connection (EVC)...
Market Segmentation
Total US Public Ethernet Access Revenues:
- by Topology:
- by Regional Domain
- by Type of Sale
- by Bandwidth Level
- greater than 1Gbit/s (1000Mbit/s)
- greater than 100Mbit/s up to and including 1Gbit/s
- greater than 10Mbit/s up to and including 100Mbit/s
- up to 10Mbit/s
US Public Ethernet Total Port Estimates by Throughput
- greater than 1Gbit/s (1000Mbit/s)
- greater than 100Mbit/s up to and including 1Gbit/s
- greater than 10Mbit/s up to and including 100Mbit/s
- up to 10Mbit/s
Sample Monthly Pricing for:
- In-Metro E-Line and E-LAN Services
- Dedicated Internet Access
Average Price Range for E-Line and E-LAN Services
| 
View Cart
