ESPs: They're for Real - Industry Trend or Event

Telecommunications, Sept, 2000

To the alphabet soup different network operators use to describe themselves, add ESPs--Ethernet service providers. As our cover story shows, people on both the equipment and service provider sides of the business seem to think that this twenty-something LAN technology can be dressed up to serve in the MAN. You've got to smile at the notion because many were ready to write off Ethernet back when 16-Mbps token ring reared its head, Ethernet was still chugging along at 10 Mbps and pesky collisions whittled down that data rate. Some of us were finally prepared to lose that warm, fuzzy feeling fostered by our familiarity with Ethernet when FDDI, Fibre Channel and, of course, ATM arrived to relieve the bandwidth bottleneck in the LAN.

Well, we're happy and a little surprised to find that in its reincarnation as 10 Gigabit Ethernet, Ethernet is going to be a dual-purpose technology that will provide even more bandwidth in the LAN and, more importantly, function as a metro technology that fits quite nicely with the optical backbone. If overlay networks (the traditional model of running IP data over ATM over SONET over DWDM) add the twin scourges of complexity and cost, then what makes more sense than slipping in Ethernet between IP and the optical network? Is there anything more straightforward than handing ISPs, ASPs or enterprise IT shops an Ethernet connection for providing the bandwidth between their locations and the WAN? There may be others, but two reasons why Ethernet has survived and thrived against competitors is cost and familiarity.

If this sounds like a tribute to Ethernet, it isn't meant to be. It is intended to draw attention to the promise Ethernet holds for customers that need bandwidth without a budget-busting price tag, and to Ethernet's ability to economically meet the bandwidth needs of new service providers lighting up office buildings. As an official at Copper Mountain pointed out, Ethernet is one of the transport technologies specified for two types of DSL--symmetric DSL and the emerging G.SHDSL. This means that inexpensive DSL modems could pass Ethernet frames upstream to a DSL concentrator, which might process the IP information in those frames, or the frames could be handed farther upstream to a router. It's now up to service providers that select metro Ethernet as their technology of choice to demonstrate that they can provide scalable bandwidth at an unbeatable price.