Carrier Ethernet Industry Voices

New Peer Reviewed Paper:  Ethernet Service Protection

by Zehavit Alon 

Over the last few years, packet switching technologies, such as Ethernet and MPLS, have been widely adopted by the industry as the technologies of choice to replace existing networks based on circuit-switching technologies, such as SONET/SDH and ATM. 

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Worldwide sales of copper-based carrier Ethernet access platforms rose 42 percent year-over-year to $266 million in the rolling four-quarter period ending in 1Q09.  These Copper-based CEAP platforms include Ethernet-over-bonded copper pair (G.shdsl and MIMO on DMT) and Ethernet-over-TDM access circuit solutions.

"Many service providers who collectively spent billions of dollars deploying carrier Ethernet/MPLS-based network infrastructure during 2006-2008 are now increasingly shifting their attention to adding low-cost copper- and fiber-based Ethernet endpoints to their networks," said industry analyst Stan Hubbard.  (a Senior Analyst for Ethernet Academy).

"In 1Q09, global E-o-bonded copper pair platform sales grew slightly quarter-over-quarter, while E-o-TDM access circuit and E-o-fiber access platform revenues dipped only modestly on a sequential basis. This stands in sharp contrast to the double-digit sequential revenue declines we saw for carrier Ethernet switches and routers that sit further back in the network."

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...