Breakthroughs in Delivery: The Ethernet Access (Cont'd)

Various large-scale Ethernet interoperability demonstrations by carriers have taken place as well. EANTC, a well-known European interoperability lab, recently conducted successful testing based on MEF specifications with twelve major vendors including Cisco, Siemens, Alcatel and Actelis Networks. The testing was endorsed by the Metro Ethernet Forum and T-Systems (Deutsche Telecom).

New chipsets integrate the new standards
New chipsets integrating the new Ethernet standards will become available at the end of this year and early next year, and will encourage more and more vendors to enter this market. They will rapidly accelerate the development of EFM based products and will promote the introduction of new, basic, low-end products.

Vendor RFPs are naming and claiming conformance with these standards
As proof that the demand for Ethernet-based services is growing fast, more and more carriers are issuing RFPs to extend their Ethernet service offering over copper to SMEs. The new Ethernet over copper standards as well as the interoperability activities are encouraging carriers to add EFM standard compliance as a requirement in their RFPs’. According to a 2004 Yankee Group Report, Ethernet service revenues are expected to triple by 2007.

Breakthroughs for Service Providers

Enhanced service offering for business
The new standards and technological breakthroughs enable service providers to easily extend their existing Ethernet service offerings to include Ethernet-over-Copper (EoC). It enables them to generate large revenue from very small investments by offering a straightforward, cost-effective and immediate response to customers demanding carrier class Ethernet services. Aggressive and effective marketing efforts can be launched to match the needs of any customer with a wide range of Ethernet bandwidth services from a few Mbps to tens, hundreds and Giga bits per second. Moreover, the marketing offering can be media independent because the same service can be provided with same SLAs over fiber or copper.

This new EoC service will enable the service providers to offer better service with higher value over competing wireless and cable companies. The formula of immediate service with higher (but scalable) bandwidth, more reliability and a lower price per bandwidth will be very compelling to customers.

Utilizing the existing infrastructure
Ethernet-over-copper services can help service providers turn their copper into gold again. Utilizing their existing copper-based infrastructure they can provide business customers (wherever they are) with new, highly demanded, lucrative and scalable services utilizing one or more bonded copper pairs. The new EFM standards feature lower overhead and therefore higher throughput and higher revenues in comparison to other IMA/ATM/M-pair based solutions. In addition it lowers the OPEX and simplifies management process. Even though EFM based solutions require voice-grade copper pairs, some available solutions can utilize even substandard existing copper.

Simpler network
The new EFM based platforms will smoothly integrate within a service provider’s existing network, creating a seamless extension of the Metro Ethernet network. Existing EFM platforms require ...

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