ethernet gets busy

SERVICE PROVIDERS SEEM TO BE LAUNCHING Ethernet WAN services in greater numbers these days as the economy stabilizes and more corporate customers consider new services.

“I think Ethernet is powerful,” says Mark Winther, group vice president of worldwide telecom at research and consulting firm IDC. “Ethernet makes clear sense in the access part of the network and in the metro where you have a campus that is distributed.”

However, “there’s a little bit of a question on long-haul demand for Ethernet services,” he adds.

“Every enterprise is certainly seeing more and more capacity requirements as more thin clients and more applications [come online],” continues Winther. “But 10gig is pretty massive bandwidth. Mirroring two data centers is among the applications — but those applications are pretty niche.”

But the new Ethernet services run the gamut from lower-end Ethernet over copper offers to services offering bandwidth into the gigabits, and from more complex services like VPLS to simple point-to-point LAN interconnection.

For example, Global Crossing formally announced a point-to-point LAN interconnection service for commercial and wholesale customers at the CompTel/ASCENT show in February.

The service, which is Global Crossing’s first foray into Ethernet in the wide area, is positioned as a private-line alternative, but is up to 25 percent less expensive than a dedicated line, according to the company, which would not provide specific pricing. Global Crossing Ethernet service runs over its MPLS-based backbone; includes SLAs on availability, packet delivery, latency, and mean time to repair; and can be billed for online.

In other recent Ethernet news, WilTel Communications introduced a wholesale version of its Managed EWAN service, a nationwide transparent LAN offering.

WilTel-deployed and -managed equipment from Overture Networks on the customer premises with native Ethernet interfaces can support Ethernet circuits up to 1gbps in flexible 1mbps increments. The solution also provides customers direct Ethernet access to WilTel’s dedicated Internet access and MPLS IP VPN services. Because Managed EWAN is an extension of Wil- Tel’s EWAN service, it can interwork with legacy frame relay and ATM protocols.

“The lack of cost-effective, feature-rich, end-to-end, wide-area transparent LAN services has hindered enterprise IT managers from reaping the benefits of Ethernet in network solutions outside the LAN,” says Tony Tomae, senior vice president of marketing for WilTel. “WilTel’s Managed EWAN addresses that issue by offering enterprises a protocol-agnostic, completely managed Ethernet solution with a variety of flexible pricing options. The solution simplifies enterprise network management because anyone who could manage their company’s Ethernet LAN can now also manage their WAN.”

BellSouth Corp. also recently added new wholesale Ethernet services to its portfolio. That includes a metro Ethernet service and an Ethernet over SONET transport service.

The services became available on a wholesale basis back in December, says Nancy D. Starcher, director of product marketing, access transport at BellSouth Interconnection Services. The company also offers best-effort Ethernet services and began selling gigE over SONET services about a year ago, says Jason Cook, product manager of BellSouth Interconnection Services. Around the end of the year, the company also plans to offer VLAN services, he says.

“We’ve been looking at several different ways to deliver Ethernet,” says Cook, who adds the company has “seen a huge interest in Ethernet.”

In the third quarter BellSouth also plans to integrate its metro Ethernet and Ethernet over SONET services to provide its wholesale customers with end-to-end solutions, Cook says.

On the commercial end and with more specific applications in mind, Time Warner Cable of New York and New Jersey is extending its suite of business services throughout New York City using Optical Ethernet and Storage Solutions from Nortel Networks Ltd. Its target is the financial sector.

Time Warner Cable has introduced new Ethernet business services that include Ethernet Private Line, Ethernet Private LAN and Ethernet Internet Connectivity. In addition, the company is offering a private storage service aimed at the financial services industry’s business continuance and disaster recovery requirements. This storage service supports storage connectivity for systems that use ESCON, FICON, Fibre Channel, IP or Ethernet storage protocols.

A handful of service providers also now are bringing VPLS services to the market. VPLS, or Layer 2 Ethernet, supports any protocol over the MPLS backbone and allows customers to manage their own routing tables, which some believe offers better security since the customer doesn’t have to pass on its routing tables to the service provider. Also, a business might use VPLS because its network does not use only IP; some businesses still use AppleTalk and IPX protocols.

Virtela Communications Inc.’s new VPLS service — Ethernet Service Fabric (ESF) — scales from 1mbps to 1gbps, in 1mbps increments. It’s now available in more than 200 cities in more than 50 countries. Customers of Virtela’s new VPLS service include Extreme Networks and Hitachi Ltd.

ESF is not Virtela’s first foray into Ethernet services. The company also offers Layer 3 MPLSbased services. Layer 3, or routed, VPNs handle IP applications only and require managed routing for each customer.

Broadwing Communications LLC also recently announced Layer 2 and 3 services, which it will bring to market in June. Both will be based on the Tellabs 8860 Managed Service Switch Router, which does switching and routing in one chassis and with one network management system, and will run over Broadwing’s MPLS backbone.

Other companies offering VPLS services today include Allstream Inc.; Completel, an alternative provider in France; Masergy Communications Inc.; MetroNet S.A. of Mexico; and SureWest Communications, a regional operator in greater Sacramento, Calif. Masergy, which was the first VPLS service provider, sells commercial VPLS services in Europe and the United States. Also, some cable operators are using VPLS for the dual purposes of offering broadcast video services and expanding into business services.