TelePacific Blog: Telecommunications Insights

The enterprise and business Ethernet services market, by several estimates, is in the process of doubling, both in terms of availability and end user spending.

In the U.S., a firm’s ability to buy Ethernet services more than doubled between 2005 and 2011, according to Vertical Systems Group. Separately, Insight Research predicts that businesses and consumers will spend $44 billion on carrier Ethernet services by 2016. Infonetics Research projects end user spending on these services will double to $49 billion between 2010 and 2015.

Cloud computing is driving much of the increased spending, as enterprises essentially outsource applications from local servers to cloud-based datacenters. Also, in more and more business situations, speed is imperative. Indeed, 10 Mbps is becoming the new T-1 access. And multiples of that are required to drive larger enterprises with a need for reliable high-speed access and communication between several locations.

As reported by FierceTelecom, TelePacific has made considerable investments in our Ethernet capabilities and take a multi-pronged approach to deliver solutions that leverage our network facilities as well as the network assets of our carrier partners. We’re Ethernet agnostic, meaning we’ll provide what we call EoX, or Ethernet over any (copper, TDM, fixed wireless and fiber) to help businesses cost-effectively and reliably connect to the Internet and communicate between multiple locations at high rates of speed.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC), which beats TDM access prices by 15 percent or more, simplifies CPE and features a universal hand-off. It’s also faster to deploy, easier and more flexible to upgrade and it’s just as reliable as TDM access but more resilient because it’s delivered over multiple copper pairs.

EoC is a terrific technology that many of our customers in California are deploying. However, if a customer’s office is not within 15,000 feet of one of our 223 Ethernet-equipped local service offices, EoC is not feasible. In those cases, customers requiring higher speeds sometimes turn to Ethernet over TDM (EoTDM), which delivers speeds up to 135 Mbps.

TelePacific’s Ethernet over fiber solution delivers speeds up to 1 Gbps. As with other Ethernet types, more and more of our customers are delving into this space. Indeed, in any given week we’re working on 150+ high bandwidth Ethernet orders. We would note, however, before we can deliver Ethernet over fiber services, the building in which a customer’s office resides must be served by fiber, and only about 32 percent of buildings in the U.S. are fiber-connected, according to Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group.

In some cases, unlit buildings are “fiber eligible,” which means that one of our partner carriers such as AT&T might be willing to perform special construction if the customer is willing to subsidize the build. However, in nearly all cases, customers opt to utilize Ethernet over copper, TDM or fixed wireless alternatives.   

To explore Ethernet options for your business location(s), please contact your TelePacific representative or local sales office to arrange a free consultation and audit of your current service mix and expenses. Based on your business needs and goals, it won’t take long for our solutions architects to assess whether Ethernet or any of our other services can help you.