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Verizon Extending Switched Ethernet Service

Posted on: Thursday, 16 June 2005, 03:00 CDT

Verizon this month plans to announce enhancements to its switched Ethernet service designed to make it more reliable for enterprise applications.

Verizon is expected to add class-of-service features to its switched Ethernet LAN and Ethernet virtual private line services, which are predominantly used for enterprise branch-office site-to- site communication. The service costs $900 to $1,000 per month for 10M bit/sec throughput, seven times the bandwidth of a 1.5M bit/ sec, $400- to $500-per-month frame relay T-1, says Mike Tighe, Verizon product manager.

Verizon plans to offer three levels of class-of-service.all backed by stringent service-level agreements (SLA), for Ethernet LAN and Ethernet virtual private line:

* Standard, a best-effort service for email and Internet surfing.

* Priority which offers throughput guarantees akin to frame relay committed information rate, for CRM and ERP applications.

* Real-Time, for voice and video.

For each class, Verizon is offering SLAs on data delivery, latency and jitter (see graphic). Should Verizon not meet its SLA guarantees, preliminary information provided by the carrier states that it will offer users a 20% credit on the monthly recurring cost of the service.

Some analysts say adding class-of-service will enable Verizon to make up revenue on the low price-per-bit of Ethernet.

"What Verizon is trying to do is figure out exactly what combination of features and capabilities create an optimum Ethernet offering," says Thomas Nolle, president of consultancy CIMI."There's a lot of interest in Ethernet right now among the enterprises, but it's predicated on there being a conspicuous cost advantage relative to the current access technologies." (see related story, page 30.)

Verizon could be the first incumbent carrier to offer Ethernet with three distinct classes of service. Among the RBOCs, BellSouth offers a premium Metro Ethernet service with guaranteed bandwidth minimums, bursting, virtual LAN stacking and SLAs. Qwest offers an ATM unspecified bit rate class-of-service for its LAN Switching Service, and 99.95% SLAs for its Metro Optical Ethernet offerings.

Among the interexchange carriers, AT&T guarantees network availability from 99.9% to 99.99%, depending on how it provisions each connection, for its Ethernet Switched Service metropolitanarea network. MCI offers 100% availability, latency under 55 millisec and delivery of at least 99.5% of packets for its Internet Dedicated Ethernet service; and 100% network availability for on-net traffic and 99.8% for off-net traffic for its U.S. Private Line Ethernet and Metro Private Line Ethernet services.

Verizon plans a number of other significant enhancements to its Ethernet services and infrastructure over the next year.

Virtual Private LAN Services is slated for 2006, Tighe says. This technology would let it offer Ethernet LAN on a national scale.

Verizon's current inter-LATA Ethernet offering is National Transparent LAN Services, a point-to-point "Ethernet virtual circuit" service.

Verizon also is scheduled to provide SONET-level access to switched Ethernet services late this year or early next by adding IEEE 802.17 Resilient Packet Ring technology to its SONET rings. RPR will enable Verizon to extend Ethernet LAN into its Enhanced Dedicated SONET Ring service, Tighe says.

Resiliency will be augmented by offering a protected access line for switched Ethernet, which extends two fibers from an Ethernet switch into the customer's premises.

Copyright Network World Inc. Jun 6, 2005

Source: Network World

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