By Tim Young

In preparing an issue on Carrier Ethernet, we wanted to take some time to talk, one-on-one, to one of the more interesting companies working in the space. Optimum Lightpath, a subsidiary of Cablevision, has been blazing trails in the Ethernet world for quite some time now, chipping away at deeply entrenched telco business markets with a focus on blazing fast fiber lines and a soft spot for Carrier Ethernet. We spoke to Chris Rabii, SVP of technical operations for Optimum Lightpath, about how Carrier Ethernet fits into the larger strategy of the company.

Pipeline’s Tim Young:

Thanks for taking time to speak to us. Optimum Lightpath is clearly a leader in the Carrier Ethernet space. To start with, can you tell us a little about your company’s path into the Ethernet market?

Chris Rabii:

I’ve often said that when Lightpath started doing Ethernet, we were probably one of the earliest companies to embark on that in any serious way in a metro environment, in 2005, or a little earlier than that. Just playing in the Carrier Ethernet space was unique. Making the jump from what goes on inside a building or in a data center to what I’ll call the real world, working between locations, there are many different factors that come into play. I think carriers, in general, have gradually figured out what that means.

Before the early-to-mid 2000s, everyone had gotten used to provisioning and maintaining services in a certain way, based on experience in the SONET world. Lightpath, through some wise technology choices, had a strong showing from 2005 to today.

A lot of smart people at different carriers have become at least thought- followers, if not thought-leaders at other companies, and now Carrier Ethernet is table stakes. Everyone can do many of the things that no one could do in 2005. I remember back when Ethernet in the Metro used to be a couple of LAN switches on the end of a piece of fiber. That didn’t give you any of the richness of features and robustness that you get with an MPLS network today, which has a fast- reroute capability and a bunch of other OA&M tools baked into the hardware and into the systems that manage it. We had a pretty good head start over a lot of others, and certainly that’s true in the New York metro area, where we pretty much exclusively operate, but now we’re looking at our next generation products, which will hopefully build on the success we’ve had in the past, and keep our growth humming along well into the future.

significant price difference between buying hardware that’s packet over SONET versus buying something that’s pure Ethernet. The cost savings is significant on the customer end, and when that happens, it essentially drags the service provider, willingly or unwillingly, into the next generation of transport technology. For them to pass those benefits onto the customer, they have to be delivering service with at least an interface that makes it more economical for their customers, or the customers will shop around for a provider that can do that. I think that’s part of the thing that has people thinking about it.

But leaving aside the customer demand piece of it, as a service provider, you look at the level of complexity and interfaces and line-speed types involved in running a SONET network (DS3s, OC3s, OC12s, all the way up to your C192s now), and to go from one speed to the next, you have to switch out hardware, put in a different interface, maybe upgrade the line side of your network… With Carrier Ethernet, to go from 10meg to 50meg, there’s no need for any dramatic changes. I can change something software-provisioning-wise. It’s a much more flexible technology.