XO Communications today announced plans to roll out a national mid-band Ethernet service using Ethernet-over-copper gear from Hatteras Networks. A multi-million dollar contract between the two companies establishes the HN 4000 and HN 400 as the exclusive platforms for XO as it extends the reach of its Ethernet services in 60 metropolitan markets.

The buildout, already complete in 30 of the 60 targeted metros, adds 20 times as many potential Ethernet customers to XO’s reach.

“We have some other ways of doing Ethernet,” said Brent Spooner, director of product marketing for data services at XO. “If you put all of it together, from our lit building fiber infrastructure to what we have today with broadband wireless, Ethernet over copper, and what we call Ethernet over serial, or DS-1s and DS-3s, we have 50 times the number of customers we can reach today over what we could reach a year ago.”

XO officials believe their network, once completed will represent the largest multi-modal Ethernet network in the U.S.

Hatteras was XO’s choice for its volume rollout announced earlier this year, but now gains sole supplier status. XO decided that working with one vendor had multiple benefits, Spooner said.

“With these types of services, it’s better to have homogeneity within the network so we aren’t trying to train people on multiple types of boxes,” he said. “Plus, you can count on the performance of the equipment, and it gets you better prices.”

Hatteras has been a good partner from the outset, he added.

“They were very helpful to us with respect to training, they were a good partner,” Spooner said. “That’s what led us to looking at them closer.”

XO is seeing growth both in Ethernet as a transport mechanism for other services such as VoIP, direct Internet access and virtual private networks and Ethernet as a wide area networking service, he said.

“We are seeing more businesses using Ethernet as a transport mechanism,” Spooner said. “But there is definitely growth in use of Ethernet as a Layer 2 WAN service.”