Used for Internet backhaul today, TDS Telecom sees everything over Ethernet down the road

It may have been 2004 when the IEEE ratified a new standard for Ethernet in the first mile, but it is 2007 that is proving Ethernet to be the access technology of the future for TDS Telecom of Madison, Wis.

TDS Telecom and its CLEC business, known as TDS Metrocom, deliver voice, video and Internet service in 29 states with 1.2 million access line equivalents. It is part of a group of companies owned by Telephone and Data Systems in Chicago that includes U.S. Cellular.

TDS Telecom's fastest-growing business is Ethernet, offering a service it calls Symmetrical Dedicated Internet. SMI is an Ethernet-over-copper solution delivered using gear from Hatteras Networks that takes the 1.544 Mb/s limit off of a customer's copper pairs and increases bandwidth to 3 Mb/s or even up to 45 Mb/s, depending on how many copper pairs are available to be combined.

Today, TDS customers are using the Ethernet service for their Internet access, but the company expects that practice to expand. “We believe that eventually Ethernet will be the platform for delivering many services, not just Internet,” said Nicholas Spang, commercial product manager for TDS. “Whether it is voice over IP, transparent LAN services, or whatever the next big thing is, we'll be in a good position to offer that over an Ethernet platform.”

TDS introduced the service just nine months ago and is growing it at a 70% rate. The company has gone from zero to 60 customers in that period of time, serving them in seven markets across Wisconsin as well as in Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, New York, Ohio and South Carolina. “Wherever we have rural markets, we have made it available,” Spang said.

Most TDS customers, he said, have started out with 3 Mb/s but have then asked for more bandwidth soon thereafter. Spang said business customers are embracing the new technology, but then again, so is TDS.

“Customers can get seven times the bandwidth and just twice the price, but for us, one hour of technician time increases revenue exponentially,” he said.

The technology also extends the life of TDS's copper plant and allows it to concentrate its fiber builds only where it makes the most sense. “Where we feel that customers will support such an offering, we are deploying fiber,” Spang said. “Many of our customers are in rural areas where Main Street is the only place businesses are, and it may make sense to run a fiber down the middle of Main Street. But when they are on the edge of town where there is no fiber run, rather than going to the expense of a fiber build, we can provide all they need over existing copper.”

TDS does so using the Hatteras HN4000 mid-band Ethernet platform, which delivers 1 to 45 Mb/s of symmetrical Ethernet service using 2BASE-TL technology to combine multiple pairs of existing last-mile copper. It also uses HN400 temperature-hardened end devices.

Research firm Vertical Systems Group projects that mid-band Ethernet will grow at a pace double that of carrier Ethernet over the next four years to reach more than 800,000 ports connected.

Gary Bolton, vice president of marketing for Hatteras, said he is seeing growth similar to TDS across its customer base. “Growth is only limited to the size of the market and how aggressively carriers go after the market,” he said.

Spang also finds that, contrary to some reports, his Ethernet service is easy to administer and quite manageable. “We can see end devices as easily as we can see them in a Sonet-type system. It is easier to monitor and administer than a traditional TDM architecture,” Spang said. He added that, best of all, “we have not had a single complaint about our quality of service.”