By Tim Young

Ethernet: From its birth in the early 1970s by Bob Metcalfe and his team as a project at Xerox’s PARC, it was designed to simplify communications between machines on a common network. Its simplicity and practicality as a LAN technology enabled it to become commonplace on the local level, allowing engineers, IT professionals, and others directly involved in LANs to have a thorough understanding of its requirements and capabilities.

Therefore, when Ethernet began to stretch its legs and grow into a MAN (Metro Area Network) and eventually a WAN technology as tech advances relaxed proximity requirements present in early iterations of the technology, the evolution was natural and the technology was familiar.

The growth of Carrier Ethernet (or Metro Ethernet. The two terms are functionally interchangeable at this point in the game) has been rapid in the past 5 years or so, with new rollouts still frequent, even as its buzzword cachet may have faded, slightly.

A wide range of telecoms service providers have shown at least tacit interest in the growth and advancement of Carrier Ethernet as a

technology through their membership in the industry forum most heavily involved in the promotion of large-scale Ethernet: The Metro Ethernet Forum.

CSP members range from major North American Tier 1’s (AT&T, Verizon, and Qwest are all members, along with Bell Canada and Rogers), to European powerhouses (BT, Orange, Telecom Italia), to business-focused service and transport providers (XO, Level3), to cablecos like Time Warner.

Meanwhile, hardware manufacturers are increasingly getting into the game, with Cisco promising IP NGN Carrier Ethernet systems designed for “The Zettabyte Era.” Cisco’s products page reports that “By 2014, annual global IP traffic will reach almost three-fourths of a zettabyte (767 exabytes)”, wherein a zettabyte is equivalent to a trillion gigabytes. That’s serious traffic. And they aren’t alone. Ciena, Juniper, Alcatel-Lucent, and many others have all made Carrier Ethernet part of their plan for stronger, faster, busier networks.

But what are the central benefits and drawbacks to this still relatively-new technology?

Another benefit is simplicity. Carrier Ethernet is less complex than many of its peers, and CSPs can enjoy what amounts to plug-and-play connectivity when a SONET environment would require significant work to execute bandwidth changes or expand the network.

Also, the familiarity that most engineers have with Ethernet from working with it on the LAN side is invaluable when incorporating it into the WAN.

And Ethernet isn’t a telco-only solution. As Current Analysis’ David Hold said back when Time Warner made its business-class Ethernet push, "For years, mid-sized customers have had very few alternatives to the legacy services provided by telcos," said Hold. "Business Class Ethernet changes the game. Its widespread availability on cable HFC networks means that SMBs now have a cost effective multi-megabit alternative to telco T1 and Frame Relay data services. This service will be a real competitive differentiator for Time Warner Cable as it continues to grow its commercial business."