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Everyone knows the benefits of Ethernet, which represents significant growth opportunities for service providers and potential productivity gains for customers. Yet in terms of wide scale deployments, Ethernet services are still in their infancy. This is due to the fact that Ethernet as a service is still very new and providers are trying to understand the market direction, the revenue returns and the long-term models.

As service providers create business cases to offer new or expanded metro Ethernet services, they require scalable, ubiquitous and interoperable solutions capable of delivering uniform features across any city, country or around the world. They also face issues such as positioning Ethernet services into the existing network, determining the impact on current revenue streams, and overcoming the market perception that Ethernet lacks the prerequisite quality of service (QoS) and resiliency mechanisms for mission critical business applications.

To understand Ethernet services and revenues, providers need to know the current positioning and where the market is headed. Like any new service offering, Ethernet services are subject to a ‘life cycle’ of technology and implementation. This cycle can be broken down into three stages:

• An early stage: Point-to-point solutions are sold to a limited number of larger customers or on-net customers. Leverages installed base of fiber.
• A middle stage: More complete point-to-multipoint service offerings are marketed to all customers both on-net and off-net, over fiber and copper. Service offerings still vary from one provider to another.
• A late stage: Inter-provider compatibility exists and true multipoint-to-multipoint solutions are sold. Providers are delivering similar offerings, mainly differing on price.

Many providers today are in the early stage, delivering point-to-point Ethernet services over their existing network infrastructures to their ‘on-net’ customers where the carrier already has a fiber drop. A few providers are moving into the mid-stage by being able to offer differentiated Ethernet services to multiple locations on and off their network. However, in order for Ethernet services to fully mature and develop through the life cycle, there are a number of challenges and requirements that have to be overcome.

If carriers want to successfully migrate from the early stage of the Ethernet services life cycle to the mid or later stages, certain challenges and requirements must be met.

Business Cases

Solid business cases must be developed before large-scale Ethernet rollouts can take place. An attractive approach is to use solutions that enable low first cost on initial deployment and that will scale as services and customers are added to the network.

Footprint: On-net vs. Off-net

The majority of service providers maintain a network that reaches only a small percentage of their customers’ locations directly (on-net). Providers also need to economically reach remote customer locations, including those served through leased access facilities (off-net). Going forward, providers must be able to use any mix of fiber or copper to deliver Ethernet services, and they must be able to use these circuits without requiring major changes to the core transport infrastructure.

Deployed Infrastructure Designed to Support Circuit Switching

Providers need to maximize the use of currently deployed infrastructures (both fiber and copper) to support existing legacy TDM services and new Ethernet-based services. Providers must be able to maintain critical circuit-based revenue streams while supporting the rollout of new high-performance Ethernet-based services, and those Ethernet services and features need to be identical at any and all locations.

OAM&P with Multiple Vendors

Providers must coordinate Operations, Administration, Management, and Provisioning (OAM&P) among equipment from multiple vendors using standards-based solutions.

Bandwidth Management

Rather than be forced into strict bandwidth guidelines or use unlimited bandwidth to solve traffic issues, providers must be able to manage bandwidth gracefully through the use of management tools such as rate limiters, policers, Quality of Service (QoS) and Class of Service (CoS).

Service Level Agreements

Both providers and customers believe that service level agreements (SLAs) and service level management (SLM) are necessary for successful relationships. Before deploying widespread Ethernet services, providers need to be able to support expected levels of network reliability to ensure compliance with subscriber SLAs.

One of the challenges competitive service providers face is the ability to deliver services to customers that are not directly connected to its networks. An example of a service provider who is adapting its network and offerings and rapidly moving into the middle stages of the Ethernet Services life cycle is Time Warner Telecom—a leading provider of competitive network solutions for businesses. Time Warner Telecom has built an infrastructure of more than 19,000 route miles of fiber and a national IP network with 10 Gbps capacity. These networks serve nearly 5,300 buildings directly, with service availability in an additional 14,000 buildings.

Deploying fiber extensions is not cost effective to every building, so Time Warner Telecom has developed a solution with Overture Networks to extend the native interface to other parts of the market at little additional cost. The benefit to Time Warner Telecom customers is that they now get the same network capabilities, access to innovative solutions and a premier customer experience at these “off-net” sites that “on-net” customer locations receive. Customers benefit by having seamless access to Time Warner Telecom services whether connected directly its fiber network or not. Time Warner Telecom benefits by increasing its services reach to anywhere in the market, without deploying additional fiber.

As more services are added to the mix and as more providers complete their build outs to support Ethernet access and IP/MPLS backbones, the Ethernet services life cycle will begin to push forward into the ultimate end goal--delivering reliable services at efficient cost points to all locations.

Most Ethernet services being delivered today are in the early stage of the life cycle--specific applications designed for specific customers. A few providers, such as Time Warner Telecom, are gaining a foothold in the mid-stage of the life cycle by delivering similar services in multiple locations, using the efficiencies of Ethernet not just for transport but to manage and provision these new services as well. Changes like this bode well for the business cases required by the service providers and should be good news to customers looking for national or international deployment of services.

Chip Redden is vice president of marketing and product management at Overture Networks Inc.

Visit Overture Networks online.