Ethernet's Keys to the Wide-area Highway (Cont'd)

Ethernet transport solutions that fail to support the ubiquitous copper infrastructure cannot reach more than a small fraction of enterprise customers. Transport solutions that fail to support legacy services doom the service provider to a continued single-service-per-access-line prison, relegating Ethernet to a role as yet another overlay network, rather than the converged multi-service transport it promises to deliver.

Using What’s There: The Universal Transport Challenge
Given the continued usefulness of legacy access technology, service providers must offer Ethernet services while also supporting TDM, Frame Relay, and private line services simultaneously over a full range of copper and fiber connections. The typical enterprise will demand a mix of these access services as it migrates to pure Ethernet WANs over time. This multi-service scenario requires a universal transport solution that supports Ethernet, TDM, Frame Relay, ATM and private line access in an access-agnostic fashion.

Such universal transport solutions are already being deployed with ILECs, IXCs, CLECs and wireless operators. They are access protocol-agnostic service provider edge devices designed to aggregate any and all access traffic for transport over any core network. This any-to-any architecture affords the customer discretion over how and when to retire legacy services and migrate to advanced services like Ethernet.

The carrier employing universal transport can use any combination of existing copper, current fiber, and future fiber to capture enterprises of every size with a full slate of TDM, Frame Relay and ATM, as well as Ethernet- and IP-based Internet access, data backup, or VoIP services ranging from 1-Mbps to 1 Gbps—today and into the all-optical future.

For the service provider, the combination of circuit bonding and universal transport lowers infrastructure costs while generating immediate revenue, thereby breaking down the barriers to entry into the broadband and converged services realms. The carrier that captures underserved branch offices today with solutions they can use, and afford, will push evolution toward revolution soon enough.

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