Carrier Ethernet Industry Voices

According to Infonetics' biannual 2010 Ethernet and IP MPLS VPN Services report, the worldwide IP MPLS VPN and Ethernet services markets continued growing amidst 2009's economic downturn. What resonated with enterprise customers during this period was overall efficiency and cost-cutting features of Ethernet services.

Published this week at the Ethernet Academy:  Inter Domain Ethernet Services  

This paper describes an Inter Domain Transport architecture for automatic inter domain provisioning of MEF based Ethernet services. This architecture emphasizes the aspects of interconnection scenarios between different operators, i.e. creation of end to end services across different domains operated by different Network Operators.

For more details please visit http://www.ethernetacademy.net/

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.