Ethernet displacing SONET/SDH in customer access networks

Infonetics: A new study of 25 top tier service providers in North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific provides further evidence that Ethernet continues to go mainstream and will eventually dominate the metro space, as SONET/SDH slowly but surely declines over the next 10 to 20 years.

Service Provider Plans for Metro Optical and Ethernet, the percentage of access or collector rings/mesh that are Ethernet jumps from 32% (among respondents that have adopted Ethernet adapter rings) in 2005 or earlier to 60% in 2009 and beyond.

The trend is clear: Ethernet is growing in the access space to the detriment and displacement of SONET/SDH, as service providers continue to look for ways to reduce operating expenditures and enable new revenue streams. And now that the number-one technical issue that was plaguing service providers rolling out metro Ethernet networks last year—QoS—is being addressed by manufacturers, the Ethernet adoption curve is speeding up. Manufacturers have added many new QoS features based on OAM standards, dramatically improving end-to-end QoS with carrier-class Ethernet products. As a result, QoS dropped from the top of the list of technical challenges last year to number seven this year.

• All respondent service providers offer Ethernet services already, and most plan to offer Ethernet over a variety of technologies, including fiber, copper, WiFi, and Wimax

• Ethernet over WDM increases from 80% in 2006 to 92% after 2009, while the number offering Ethernet over SONET/SDH decreases from 88% to 60%

• 48% of providers plan to deploy next gen hybrid Ethernet-WDM-SONET/SDH equipment

• Incumbent providers are currently ahead of competitives in displacing SONET/SDH with Ethernet services; Europe is moving the fastest in displacing SONET/SDH, Asia Pacific the slowest

• Respondents offer a variety of network-based services over Ethernet in 2006, led by packetized voice, private line over Ethernet, and a number of video, storage related, and security related services

• By 2009, 52% of respondents have a strategy to deploy an all-Ethernet and/or an Ethernet/MPLS network that combines residential/Triple Play and business traffic

• Most respondents use VPNs to offer Ethernet services, and all VPN service types grow in usage by 2009, with layer-2 point-to-point MPLS VPNs (pseudowire) and VPLS growing the most

Service Provider Plans for Metro Optical and Ethernet, Publ 20061017