Carrier Ethernet Industry Voices

As the world economy collapsed last year, sales of carrier Ethernet gear grew 31% to $17 billion - reports Gerson, Lehrman Group
5/1/09 (Link to article)

The Internet is expanding at rates unimaginable even 10 years ago, and with new applications and traffic characteristics not envisioned at the start.  Part 2 is played below.  Please register and click on "Ethernet Academy Club" to view the other parts of this conference and much more.

The business case for Carrier Ethernet WAN services is obvious (well it should be :) ), primarily as a higher-bandwidth, lower-cost alternative to frame relay, it's also a an attractive alternative from legacy frame/ATM or TDM services but the key is availability.

Service providers continue to focus on enterprise customers and the benefits are real.  At a minimum, enterprises benefit from lower equipment costs, lower operations costs (OPEX), pay for services used and bandwidth required, lowest per-bit cost services, potentially lower bandwidth requirements etc.

For service providers, the benefits:  multiple services on a single interface,  reduced equipment costs, lower cost of delivery (virtually no truck rolls), revenue ramps-up faster due to less complexity, new revenue potentially - some from services never before available, and ultimately greater/improved profitability.

The MEF has been instrumental by initiating and successfully driving formal efforts to define Carrier Ethernet and the services delivered by Service Providers.    Without the five attributes defined by the MEF which distinquish Carrier Ethernet from common LAN-based Ethernet ~ Standardized services, Scalability, Reliability, Quality of Service (QoS) and Service management ~ Service Provider's would likely continue to deploy an infrastructure that  necessitates greater infrastructure, management and expense.   That said, Ethernet services can be carried over SDH/SONET and  IP/MPLS.    In the case of IP/MPLS this is a significant advantage in that Ethernet links can be transported as "pseudowires" using MPLS label switched paths (LSPs) inside an outer MPLS "tunnel".     There is so much more that could be said here...

Isn't it time to cut-bait on legacy systems?  The "video mountain" will climb independently, and higher, for each service provider due to the demand for video services - everything video, everything "interactive video" with content interaction.    Key areas of build-out:  a) Video wireline buildout, b) IPTV wireline buildout, c) 4G/LTE buildout and replacement of an increasingly "creaking" infrastructure.

 

Despite the current economic challenges businesses face as well as current and forthcoming optimization of their business operations, Carrier Ethernet is well beyond it's infancy and poised for continued growth.  Practically an unstoppable force clearly due to the service benefits and continued work by the MEF and it's members to improve-upon the core technologies.   Not to mention the economic benefits for the service providers and their customers.   Virtually every market is, and will, continue to benefit from the Ethernet services that carriers provide, which also means that manufacturers of equipment used by carriers for these networks will benefit as well.