Yankee Group Finds Metro Ethernet on the Horizon in Asia-Pacific; Enhanced Flexibility and Scalability Drive Ethernet Market Growth to New Heights

Business Wire, July 19, 2006

BOSTON -- Yankee Group has revealed that Ethernet as a main protocol is growing progressively in Asia-Pacific. Asia-Pacific is the second largest market after Europe in terms of revenue, totaling $676.5 million in 2005. Most service providers in Asia-Pacific offer their Ethernet services over an MPLS-based IP VPN network. Although Metro Ethernet is gaining momentum in the corporate networking arena, the capability to offer enhanced manageability and service performance remains critical for service providers to stand out and win enterprise business.

According to Big Bandwidth, Low Prices: Asia's Speed Demons Review, a recently published Yankee Group Report, several factors are driving the boom of the Asia-Pacific wide-area Ethernet market including surging bandwidth requirements, the ability to provision bandwidth on-demand and a gradual network migration. Although wide-area Ethernet has made inroads into metro-area networks in Asia-Pacific, the growing number of market players continues to alter the industry landscape. Yankee Group predicts China will become the fastest developing market in wide-area Ethernet service revenue. Additionally, India is an important market for Ethernet growth. However, wide-area Ethernet service revenue remains insignificant in India. Indian operators are racing to provision new value-added services on L3 connectivity.

"Asian enterprises are more or less undergoing network transformation to all IP infrastructures, leading to a faster migration to Metro Ethernet adoption," said Agatha Poon, Yankee Group Telecommunication Strategies Asia-Pacific senior analyst. "For Ethernet providers to better distinguish themselves in this competitive marketplace, they must continue to introduce new service options through improving resiliency, scalability and service delivery capabilities of the Ethernet network."

This Yankee Group Report examines the Asia-Pacific market for Metro/WAN Ethernet services, identifies key market trends and growth opportunities, and analyzes how service providers differentiate themselves to win enterprise business. Although the rise of Metro/WAN Ethernet presents the market with tremendous opportunities, it also triggers a set of challenges. Service providers must refine their portfolios by strengthening the service quality and performance management of Ethernet networks to create unique market positioning and achieve wide customer acceptance.

NOTE TO EDITORS

For interviews contact:

--Agatha Poon, Yankee Group, 617-880-0297, apoon@yankeegroup.com

--Christina Oh, Yankee Group, 617-880-0238, coh@yankeegroup.com

YANKEE GROUP (www.yankeegroup.com)

Yankee Group is the expert in navigating the global connectivity revolution. For more than 35 years, Yankee Group's strategic vision, research and analysis, quantified market intelligence and credible advice have been guiding innovation and empowering our clients to make critical business decisions. Yankee Group is headquartered in Boston with presence throughout North America, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia-Pacific.