Though service providers long struggled with the decision to offer metro Ethernet services for fear that it would cannibalize their profitable existing frame relay and ATM services, that fear has clearly given way to a deeper fear of competitors that will offer the typically less expensive service. In a survey conducted by Infonetics Research of Tier 1 carriers in North America, Europe and Asia/Pacific, less than a third rated cannibalization as a primary pressure point, whereas about half described competition that way. As evidenced by other recent Infonetics data, carriers are pursuing an increasingly diverse variety of media and technologies to offer metro Ethernet and plan to use it for a wide range of applications, including even packetized voice. “Ethernet is on pace toward metro service dominance over the next five to 10 years,” said Michael Howard, principal Infonetics analyst. A newly launched comprehensive effort from the Metro Ethernet Forum to establish a universal standards-based carrier-grade version of metro Ethernet should help service providers embrace the increasingly important technology.

Source: Infonetics Research

Source: Infonetics Research

Source: Infonetics Research