THE regional Bell companies have adopted a much more aggressive posture in the Ethernet services arena for the year ahead, with all but one carrier saying they're moving to make gigabit Ethernet widely available.
"Right now, everything running over our Ethernet services operates at the same quality levels, but we'll be introducing variations in quality of service levels in mid to late 2002," says Mark Kaish, vice president of data services, product management and product marketing at BellSouth. "Over time, we anticipate offering support for integration of voice with data over Ethernet, but customers aren't seeking that yet."
Kaish's thinking mirrors that of Bell strategists elsewhere as they act to exploit rising demand and competitive pressures in the Ethernet services arena as it is now configured while mapping a migration path to the future. They were providing 10 and 100mbps Ethernet and, in some cases, 1 gigE as customers demanded it on a point-to-point basis over dedicated fiber pairs. Now they are installing gigE switches to handle point-to-multipoint services while making sure there's enough optical capacity for much more active promotion of the services in the face of rising demand and competitive pressures.
All, that is, except Qwest Communications International Inc., which is sticking with plans to offer gigE outside its ILEC territories but is not ready to talk about plans for launching in-territory service. "Right now we're focusing our efforts with gigabit Ethernet on our local broadband service initiative out of region," notes spokeswoman Claire Maledon. "We've moved into 20 or so markets with gigE since we announced our plans last May."
Nonetheless, it seems just a matter of time before Qwest follows the path taken by the other RBOCs, since all are looking at basically the same set of market conditions. These start with rising demand for LAN-to-LAN connectivity on a point-to-point basis, notes Daron Young, director of managed services for the Enterprise Solutions Group at Verizon Communications Inc. "Close to 80 percent of the demand for Ether-
net service is for transparent LAN connectivity," he says. "There's a convenience factor and cost savings in equipment that makes this a compelling option for a lot of companies."
Young and others believe applications with potential for strong growth potential involve integration of Internet access with the transparent LAN and use of gigE to access storage providers' facilities to create disaster recovery backup for corporate data operations. At Verizon, this means new service options will soon be available to make it easier for customers to implement these applications. "We're putting the finishing touches on our plans for 2002," Young says.
So far, the details Young will discuss involve the extension of Ethernet services beyond currently tariffed locations in Washington, D.C., and New York to other primary and secondary markets. "We're starting to see demand that makes that effort worthwhile," he says, noting the strategy calls for offering all three port speeds from a single platform. "We're putting (gigE) switches in central offices and a box on the customer premises that allows us to handoff 10, 100 or 1 gigE to the end user. And we're linking the COs to extend the reach of these services across our regions."
BellSouth, which has been offering a 10/100 Native Mode LAN Interconnection service for seven years, is now rolling out point-to-point and switched gigE in conjunction with a stepped-up marketing campaign for all levels of Ethernet service, starting in Atlanta and Miami and moving early this year to other Florida cities and cities in North Carolina, Kaish says. And, he adds, this summer the carrier plans to add a 10-gigabit Ethernet capability to the portfolio, possibly making it the first RBOC to do so.
"As we get into more cities we're going to really promote Ethernet service," Kaish says. "It's a greatly simplified solution for a lot of applications."
Right now, along with LAN-to-LAN, the hottest application and one tying into another BellSouth initiative is managed storage service, Kaish says.
In September the company announced plans to partner with StorageNetworks, Inc to develop and market network-enhanced managed storage products. "We're offering customers the ability to connect to our storage services from their premises over gigE," Kaish notes. BellSouth also sees an opportunity to offer businesses use of gigE to aggregate teleworker and remote office data from DSL connections for interconnection with the transparent LAN, he says.
As for SBC Communications Inc., the other RBOC now expanding its Ethernet reach, the strategy is focused on making it easier for customers to avail themselves of the point-to-point "GigaMAN" service the carrier is now offering in metro regions across its 13-state territory. "We don't have an Ethernet access offering at this point, but we're building toward that type of service," says Ashley Blaker, a spokesman for SBC. The new wrinkle is that the point-to-point service, which requires a dedicated fiber pair pulled to the customer premises, can now be carried over the metro via a new Multi-Service Optical Networking (MON) transport service SBC is putting in place using the dense wavelength division multiplexing OPTera Metro 5200 Multiservice Platform supplied by Nortel Networks Inc.
"GigaMAN has been in great demand, but it's a bandwidth hog," Blaker notes. "By being able to transport the service in native protocol over a dedicated wavelength, we're able to make better use of optical capacity." The carrier began offering Multi-Service Optical Networking service in Southwestern Bell territory in October and will be expanding it across its 13-state territory in the coming months, he says, adding, "as we get further into 2002 we'll be able to discuss plans for additional components of the Ethernet product roadmap."
ADVA'S Optical Networking Solution Chart
Source: ADVA (www.san.com/advice)
