Ethernet WAN to Complement Your LAN

By: John Shepler

Traffic on your company’s Local Area Network (LAN) zips along at 1 Gbps or more. In most cases that’s so fast it seems like the network is transparent. Yet, access a resource outside your building and things just seem to creep along. Wouldn’t it be nice to just stretch that LAN across town or to one of your remote locations? Well, maybe you can.

Yes, The WAN is Ethernet
Networks can be divided into two categories: The ones you own and the one’s you lease. You typically install and administrate your company network, called the LAN. When you leave the premises, you connect to another network that operates as a utility. That's the WAN or Wide Area Network. Originally, this WAN was owned and operated by the telephone companies and implemented their proprietary standards. That includes your phone voice lines, ISDN dial-up, T1, DS3, and SONET fiber optic. Connecting to any of these standards requires specialized equipment to do the protocol conversion to and from the Ethernet that runs on the LAN.

These days, most outside lines connect directly to Ethernet without any protocol conversions. The suppliers can be telephone companies or competitive carriers who run their own fiber optic networks. Interoperability is made easy by Carrier Ethernet Standards established the MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum) industry consortium.

Ethernet WAN Services
There are three services typically offered by Ethernet service providers that you’ll want to know about.

E-Line or Ethernet Virtual Private Line is a point to point service that connects two locations as if there was a really, really long Ethernet cable in-between.

E-LAN or Ethernet Virtual Private LAN is for multiple locations that want to communicate as if they are on a private bridged Ethernet network.

E-Tree or Ethernet Virtual Private Tree is also a multipoint service, but used more for broadcasting, streaming or content distribution. It is a one-to-many service with a single root and multiple leaves.

Getting Ethernet WAN Service
Within a metropolitan area, the service is called Ethernet MAN or Metropolitan Area Network. Over longer distances that leave the area, Ethernet WAN or Wide Area Network is the term used.

You’ll contract with a service provider or carrier that has points of presence in the locations you want to connect. You may have several to choose from.

The equipment installed at your location consists of terminal equipment with an Ethernet port that supports the network speed you desire. Unlike older systems that require equipment changes for every change in service level, you can order Ethernet service at many different speeds up to the limit of the installed port. This has the advantage of letting you pay for the service level you need now and then upgrade easily as you need more capacity. Often that’s as easy as making a change via your online service portal or with a simple phone call.

Ethernet to the Internet
The Internet is the ultimate Wide Area Network, connecting just about everybody, everywhere. You can order an Ethernet Dedicated Internet Access to connect your company to the Internet at whatever bandwidth you desire. The advantage of a dedicated connection is that the full bandwidth of the line is at your disposal and not affected by the carrier’s other customers. These lines are also typically symmetrical, meaning that upload and download speeds are identical.

Why not just use the Internet to connect your far flung locations as well as connecting to customers? Many companies do. it’s likely your lowest cost option. What you give up is the ability to establish Class of Service so that sensitive applications like VoIP phone calls and video conferences have priority over less critical applications such as file transfers and backups. Internet performance is also somewhat unpredictable because of unexpected congestion, indeterminate packet routing, jitter, latency and packet loss.

For companies with multiple locations, a hybrid arrangement may work best. Use dedicated Ethernet services to interconnect business locations and the Internet to communicate with supplier and customers.

Does Ethernet WAN sound right for your business? Get a suite of competitive quotes for Ethernet WAN or MAN services now with a single inquiry.

Business Gigabit Ethernet Bandwidth Advantage

By: John Shepler

It’s time for a bandwidth upgrade. You’ve been getting by with bonded T1, DS3, OC3 or OC12 fiber service and it’s not getting the job done anymore. What about a move up to Gigabit service? Is that practical? Can it be done without destroying the budget? Yes, if you are savvy about what to pick for your next bandwidth service. Let’s take a quick look at something that may have only become available since you signed your last line lease. It’s Gigabit Ethernet.


In case you’re still wondering why you shouldn’t just upgrade with classical switched circuit line services instead of moving into Gigabit Ethernet, there are several points to consider.

T1, DS3 and SONET have been around for decades and are highly reliable telecom services. But did you know that all of these are designed around telephone company needs in transporting large numbers of simultaneous calls. This technology long predates the rise of packet switched networks.

As such, you are dealing with a protocol conversion when you go from your network to the WAN connection and back again. That works, but it’s less efficient, harder to scale and pricier than just keeping everything Ethernet from end to end.

Let’s talk about scaling for a second. Any service can be rate limited by the carrier so that you only get a portion of the available bandwidth. This is called fractional service. The reason to do this is that you don’t need the full bandwidth the line can provide and may be offered a cost savings if you take just a fraction. That cost savings hasn’t traditionally been anywhere near proportional to the speed reduction.

The bigger problem comes when you run out of bandwidth. Bonded T1 tops out about 10 Mbps or so, DS3 is 45 Mbps, OC3 runs 155 Mbps and OC12 delivers 622 Mbps. If you want to move up from one of these services to another, you need the provider to come in can change out equipment. Each interface is unique to that service level. The result is a step change in price level and delays of weeks or more to get the changes made.

Carrier Ethernet was designed from the get-go to be more scalable. Your interface is an Ethernet connection regardless of the service level. What varies is the maximum speed of the installed port. That can be 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10,000 Mbps. Carriers typically install 100 Mbps or 1000 Mbps ports for most businesses to be sure there is more than enough bandwidth available.

You can have a Gigabit Ethernet port installed at your location and then elect to start off with 100 Mbps or 400 Mbps or the full 1000 Mbps. Later, you can scale up or down with just a phone call to your provider. There are no equipment changes needed unless you need to move up to, say, 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Don’t forget that Ethernet gives you a choice of services. You can opt for E-Line, a simple dedicated point to point connection. But, you can also choose E-LAN, a fully meshed any to any connection that is perfect for linking multiple business locations on the same network. This is a layer 2 service, so you’re able to create one large bridged network. This beats trying to do the same by ordering multiple line services and switching or routing them at your headquarters.

High levels of bandwidth that didn’t make sense a few years ago are now easily affordable by medium size businesses, school districts, medical centers, banks, and other organizations. Get a quick quote on business Gigabit Ethernet bandwidth for your location or locations and see if it doesn’t make sense for you to upgrade now.

Fiber Optic Service FAQ, Part 2

Here are some more frequently asked questions and answers about fiber optic service for your business You may also be interested in the first list of fiber FAQs.

Q: What types of services are available over Ethernet fiber?

A: The Metro Ethernet Forum has standardized three popular services that are of interest to business users. Ethernet Private Line or E-Line is a dedicated point to point connection between two business locations or from your location to the Internet. Ethernet LAN or E-LAN provides a meshed network service that interconnects multiple locations. Ethernet Tree or E-Tree is a one to many connection popular with companies that distribute content to many subscribers.

Q: How do you connect multiple location LANs together

A: E-Line and E-LAN can do this easily. E-Line is appropriate for two locations to connect as a single bridged network. E-LAN makes sense for 3 or more locations, even those located internationally. E-LAN can make many separate LANs work like they are one larger network.

Q: What is Ethernet over SONET?

A: Most Ethernet providers offer a “native” Ethernet that powers their entire network. If you are in a location that can only get SONET, some carriers offer Ethernet that runs over the SONET fiber. From your prospective, this is the same as any other Ethernet over Fiber.

Q: Can Ethernet carriers interconnect?

A: Yes. The equipment that does this is called E-NNI or Ethernet Network to Network Interface. It allows service providers to seamlessly transfer network traffic back and forth. This allows both carriers to expand their service footprints to wider geographical areas.

Q: What are low latency fiber routes?

A: Most fiber networks strive to minimize latency or time delay between locations. Those advertised specifically as low latency routes are specially engineered to minimize the fiber route length using the straightest path available. They also minimize equipment along the route that can introduce additional latency. Low latency fiber services are in big demand for financial companies that deal in high speed trading.

Q: What is Metro Ethernet?

A: Metro Ethernet or MetroE is a fiber optic network that connects business and other locations within a limited geographic region, usually a single city or metropolitan area consisting of city and suburbs. MetroE connections can also connect to other locations nationally or worldwide.

Q: Does Ethernet support telephone service?

A: Ethernet is a great choice for enterprise VoIP phone service. A specialized service known as SIP Trunking connects your networked telephones or IP PBX to a distant service provider. The higher the bandwidth, the more simultaneous conversations can be supported. Traditional analog phones are better supported with analog phone lines or ISDN PRI service over T1 lines.

Q: Is Ethernet over Fiber distance limited like Ethernet over Copper?

A: No. Fiber offers unlimited transmission distance at any speed you wish. Most service providers have regional networks that serve multiple states or offer nationwide service. Some carriers connect worldwide using undersea cable between continents.

Are you interested in what fiber optic bandwidth service can do for your business? If so, get get instant online pricing up to 1 Gbps and complementary consultation with a bandwidth expert if you wish.


You may also be interested in reading Fiber Optic Service FAQs, Part 1 and Part 3.

Lit Buildings Expand Fiber Optic Bandwidth in Houston

Houston, Texas, the fourth largest city in America, is a major center for healthcare and research, oilfield equipment and energy development, manufacturing, aeronautics, and home to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Demand for high speed telecom services, especially fiber optic bandwidth, is high and rising every year. To meet this critical business need, Alpheus Communications is extending its Texas fiber network to light key buildings in the Houston business district.

What is a lit building? In this sense, it means having fiber optic service installed and turned up within the facility. The “lit” reference is to the laser light that carries the digital signals through the fiber. There is also such a thing as “dark” fiber. The dark variety consists of fiber strands that have been pulled into the building but not connected to any equipment.

The advantage of having already lit fiber available in your facility is that you can be connected quickly and easily at any bandwidth up to 1 Gbps, or even higher in some cases. The terminal equipment is already in place and running. Other tenants in your office building may already be connected for fiber service. It’s generally no trouble at all to add an additional cable and run it to your particular location. You may even have such wiring in place from when the building was constructed.

In addition to being guaranteed connectivity and having it provisioned rapidly, being in a lit building saves you the often huge expense of bringing fiber in when it isn’t already available. That process can involve trenching for new conduit or threading fiber cable through existing conduit underground. In some cases, the fiber is “flown” overhead on utility poles. There is nothing inexpensive about pulling in new fiber.

So, if there is considerable expense in fiber installation, then why is Alpheus lighting buildings on its own dime? The demand for high bandwidth levels is already there and expected to only increase over the next few years. The buildings that Alpheus has selected are already business centers that can make good use of professional bandwidth services. These are located at 1001 Fannin St., Two Allen Center at 1200 Smith St. and 601 Travis St. Once connected, these buildings will be considered “on-net” for fiber optic service.

Other buildings are expected to follow, with Alpheus making additional investments this year. They have a goal of connecting 100 buildings in Dallas and Houston to their fiber network. Beyond that, the core Alpheus network connects to more than 300 central offices and POPs (Points of Presence). This includes both fiber and copper connections.

Copper? Yes, indeed. Twisted pair copper bundles are already installed to nearly every business location. Fiber easily outperforms copper when it comes to sheer bandwidth. However, not every business needs a Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) connection. Many companies have been getting by with T1 lines running at 1.5 Mbps for years. Cloud services and other business applications are quickly rendering T1 service obsolete. However, Ethernet over Copper (EoC) offers much higher bandwidth using the same twisted pair copper wiring that now supports T1 and multi-line telephone service.

Entry level EoC service typically begins at 3 Mbps for about the same cost as 1.5 Mbps T1. That’s twice the bandwidth for the same money. It is easy to ramp that up to 10 or 20 Mbps at reasonable cost. Some locations qualify for 50 and even 100 Mbps EoC bandwidth. The catch is that Ethernet over Copper is distance limited. You need to be located fairly close to the telco central office to get the really high bandwidths. Even so, many companies are finding that they can get by just fine with EoC right now and put off the investment in fiber construction until necessary. With carriers lighting buildings at a rapid rate, that fiber may even be in place by the time you need hundreds or thousands of Megabits per second.

Alpheus Communications is a high performance competitive carrier serving the DASH (Dallas-Austin-San Antonio-Houston) business marketplace. They offer Metro Ethernet, private line, managed wavelength MPLS network, Ethernet LAN (E-LAN), Ethernet Line (E-Line) and both PRI and SIP telephone trunking.

Are you located in Houston or other business locations in the United States, or have connections to the US? If so, there are many high bandwidth, low cost copper and fiber optic network services available to connect your business locations together and to the Internet. Check pricing and features to see what is available at your particular location.


Note: Photo of Houston skyline at night courtesy of Bobby L. Warren on Wikimedia Commons.

Long Range Ethernet Goes Beyond The LAN

Ethernet has grown from its inception in the 1980s to become the dominant Local Area Network (LAN) protocol. The big technical advance in this decade is the rise of Ethernet as a Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) protocol of choice. It’s likely that when this process is complete it will be Ethernet as far as the eye can see. What is it that is driving this move to Ethernet everywhere and what advantages does it offer for your business?

What’s solidified Ethernet in the LAN for now and the foreseeable future is economy of scale. Nearly every piece of networking gear you can buy has standard copper or fiber Ethernet connectors. The most popular of these, of course, is the RJ-45 connector. You recognize it immediately without even having to look at the legends near the connector or any equipment manuals. Within the organization, everything plugs into Ethernet sockets to connect to the network.

The big disconnect occurs when you want your traffic to leave the confines of your building or campus. You might find a contractor who will interconnect businesses within an office or industrial park, but that’s about as far as you can install private network cable. You might get a little farther with optical line of sight or microwave wireless transmissions. However, if you want to be able to connect to the Internet or establish a private network around town or across the country, you need to use a telecom carrier.

The first carriers were local telephone companies. Today’s ILECs or Incumbent Local Exchange Carriers offer far more than telephone service. They have twisted pair copper bundles running to every home and business. They also generally have fiber optic cabling for their own use and to lease to major businesses. These services have their own unique protocols invented by the telephone industry to transport phone calls. Copper data transmissions use T-Carrier, such as T1 or T3. Fiber optic transmissions use SONET (Synchronous Optical NETwork) standards, such as OC-3, OC-12 and OC-48.

How do you connect an Ethernet protocol network to a T-Carrier or SONET protocol carrier? Very carefully! You need what’s called a protocol converter. This is generally in the form of a plug-in module for your router. The conversion process changes the signals and timing of one protocol to another so that they can exchange digital data.

This conversion process has worked well for decades, so why change it? The reasons are efficiency, new services and cost.

What’s happened is that new competitive carriers have emerged. These carriers don’t have the legacy of telephone company standards to support and have embraced IP networking for their regional and nationwide fiber optic networks. Since your network runs Ethernet and their network runs Ethernet, it seems logical to interconnect them via Ethernet.

The standardization of what’s called Carrier Ethernet by the industry standards group, Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), has opened the door to handing off network traffic from business to carrier and between carriers within the Ethernet protocol. Getting rid of the conversions makes the process more efficient. More importantly, it has made possible services that you can’t get on the old telco networks. Notably, these are E-Line or Ethernet Line service and E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service. The difference is that E-Line connects two locations and E-LAN can connect multiple locations in a mesh network.

By keeping everything as Ethernet, it is now possible to bridge LANs at two or more locations at the layer 2 level using Ethernet switches. Essentially, you take all these individual LANs and join them to form one much larger corporate LAN.

Another advantage of using Carrier Ethernet to transport your traffic is that it was designed from the beginning to be easily scalable in much finer increments than the telco protocols. You install a port, say 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10 GigE, that sets the maximum bandwidth of your connection. However, you don’t need to order the highest speed that the circuit will support you can start off at a quarter or half of that and then increase your bandwidth when needed. Often, all that is needed is a call to your Ethernet service provider. The change can be implemented in hours or days because there are no equipment swaps that need to be made.

Finally, Carrier Ethernet has a significant cost advantage compared to bonded T1, T3 (DS3) bandwidth and SONET services. On a per-Mbps basis, Ethernet often costs just half of what you pay for the older technologies. That mean you can save money for the company on your next telecom contract or double your bandwidth for the same budget.

Does long range Ethernet meet your needs? A good way to find out is to get competitive quotes for both traditional bandwidth and Carrier Ethernetservices and compare cost and features.

1000 Mbps SONET or Gigabit Ethernet Options

As bandwidth needs have increased for business, many companies are moving to WAN network speeds once considered impractical. The competitive bandwidth marketplace is making 1,000 Mbps or Gigabit Ethernet (GigE) much more affordable than you might think. The cost per Mbps has plummeted over the last few years while availability has multiplied.

This is good news for any business moving to cloud computing or inherently large bandwidth users, such as medical centers, content creators and providers, and Internet service providers. The option to use T-carrier or other wireline services isn’t really an option anymore. What you need is a fiber optic connection.

Fiber connections come in several flavors. Your options include traditional SONET service, Ethernet over Fiber, and shared bandwidth service.

SONET is the original fiber optic standard. It was developed by the telephone companies for their own use in transporting massive numbers of telephone calls. As computers became the big users of bandwidth, SONET was made available to businesses as a point to point connection or high speed Internet access.

SONET is actually an acronym for Synchronous Optical NETwork. It’s a synchronous protocol organized as time slots rather than packets. Today’s packet oriented networks need a SONET interface to perform the protocol conversion necessary to load and unload packets into the SONET time slots.

That interface is generally in the form of a card or module that plugs in the back of your router. You need to choose the proper interface to match the speed of the service. SONET comes in discrete bandwidth levels that include 155 Mbps (OC-3), 622 Mbps (OC-12), 1.2 Gbps (OC-24), 2.4 Gbps (OC-48), 10 Gbps (OC-192) and 40 Gbps (OC-768). Each speed level requires a specifically designed interface module, although you can sometimes get fractional speed levels. For instance, you may be able to order OC-12 service that is capable of running at 622 Mbps but have the bandwidth rate limited to 300 Mbps. That saves you money on your telecom expenses until you need the full 622 Mbps.

SONET has been in service the longest of the high speed fiber technologies and forms the backbone of many regional and nationwide fiber optic networks. It is also readily available, especially in major metropolitan areas.

What competes head to head with SONET is Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). This is the Ethernet protocol, directly compatible with your LAN. The handoff from the bandwidth provider is a standard Ethernet connection that plugs right into your router.

Why choose Ethernet? In addition to avoiding protocol conversions between the LAN and WAN, Ethernet services are highly scalable. The speed of the port installed at your business location determines the maximum bandwidth. If you have a Gigabit Ethernet port, a very common installation, you can choose just about any bandwidth up to 1000 Mbps and make changes without having to replace any equipment. Start with what you need today and then upgrade as needed with a simple call to your provider.

Another reason to pick Ethernet over Fiber is that it supports standardized Carrier Ethernet services such as E-Line and E-LAN. E-Line is a point to point connection. E-LAN is a meshed multi-location network. Both E-Line and E-LAN can be set up to run at the layer 2 switching level so that you can interconnect multiple LANs as one large bridged network. These LAN locations can be anywhere in the country and even include international destinations.

Finally EoF tends to be a lower cost service than SONET on a per-Mbps basis. SONET prices have dropped dramatically over the last few years, but Ethernet still tends to be considerably cheaper. The only limitation is that SONET may be more readily available at your location.

The final choice is shared bandwidth. This is the cheapest WAN connection of all, priced at just a fraction of similar SONET or Carrier Ethernet solutions. The tradeoff is that you are sharing a pool of bandwidth with many other users. The bandwidth you have available at any given moment can vary all over the place. Also, shared bandwidth services tend to be asymmetrical. The download speed is much higher than the upload speed. This works fine if all you need is access to the Internet for your employees. It may fall short if you upload many files, need a highly responsive connection to cloud services or use your high bandwidth service for remote backup and recovery.

Are you in need of higher business bandwidth connection but concerned about the expense? Get competitive quotes on SONET and Carrier Ethernet options and see how many different options are available for your business locations.

Ethernet In The First Mile Advantages

Metropolitan and Wide Area Networks can transport your packets anywhere you wish them to go. Regardless of what type of network you are connecting to, there’s one more thing you are going to need. It’s a way to get to the nearest on-ramp. This is often called first or last mile connectivity. Ethernet offers some real advantages to that first mile link that you should know about.

There are a number of technologies that work well for first mile connections. These include T1 lines, DSL, SONET fiber optic services and even microwave or 3G/4G wireless. The idea is to connect your building to your service provider, or at least a portal to your service provider. In many cases, you can’t connect directly to your preferred network service provider because they don’t have any resources close enough. In other cases, it’s more cost effective to do it in a couple of hops.

A very typical case is the venerable T1 line. These are almost universally used by businesses as first mile links. Why? Because they are highly reliable, reasonably priced and almost always available. That availability is based on using telco twisted pair copper wire bundles that run from the business directly to the nearest Central Office (CO). That CO is owned by the incumbent local phone company, but copper pairs and rack space for equipment are leased to other service providers. This is where you connect to your provider’s network.

In many areas you now have the option of connecting via T1 lines or Ethernet over Copper (EoC). They both use exactly the same bundled twisted pairs but have different interfacing equipment at each end. This may not make any difference to you if your provider is installing a managed router as part of the service. You’ll connect to the router with a standard Ethernet LAN cable. What will make a difference is the lease price you’ll pay each month and the bandwidth options available.

Ethernet over Copper is less expensive per Mbps in most areas. You can typically get 2 Mbps or even 3 Mbps EoC for the same price as a 1.5 Mbps T1 line. It’s an even better deal as you go up in bandwidth. T1 lines can be bonded to double, triple or quadruple line speed or even more. You can stretch this technology up to 10 or 12 Mbps, but it starts to get pricey at the high end. Ethernet over Copper scales much less expensively and to higher bandwidths. While 3 Mbps EoC is a popular replacement for T1 service, many companies order 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 or even 45 Mbps Ethernet over Copper bandwidth. You can even get increments between these levels so that you don’t have to pay for any more connectivity than you actually need.

In addition to cost savings and increased bandwidth, there’s another reason that you may want to opt for Ethernet rather than T1 in the first mile. Standardized Carrier Ethernet services are now widely available. These include Ethernet Line (E-Line), Ethernet LAN (E-LAN) and VPLS (Virtual Private LAN Service). What they have in common is layer 2 connectivity that gives you the option to bridge your company LANs regardless of how far apart they may be separated. You need to keep everything in the Ethernet protocol to make this work. EoC will do that, T1 won’t. However, there is a service called EoDS1 that uses T1 lines to transport Ethernet where EoC isn’t available.

If you need higher speeds than Ethernet over Copper affords, you should take look at Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). It’s a replacement for SONET fiber optic services that include OC-3, OC-12, OC-48 and so on. Like EoC, EoF has both scalability and cost advantages. If you order a 1 Gbps port, as many companies do, you can have your provider deliver any bandwidth up to 1,000 Mbps and pay only for what you need. When your requirements increase, a simple phone call to your provider will get you higher bandwidth quickly. Ethernet over Fiber has the same Carrier Ethernet services available as Ethernet over Copper.

Are you thinking that Ethernet may be a better solution to your connectivity needs that what you have now? If so, get prices, bandwidths and availability of First Mile Ethernet services for your business locations.

20 to 100 Mbps Metro Ethernet

Companies often lease telecom lines for dedicated access to the Internet or for Wide Area Network (WAN) connections. These WAN links can span cities, states or even international borders. But what if all you want to do is connect two or more locations in the same town? What you need then is a MAN or Metropolitan Area Network.

The newest type of metropolitan network is called Metropolitan Ethernet, Metro Ethernet or Metro E. What’s exciting about Metro Ethernet is the wide range of bandwidth levels available, the ease and speed of increasing bandwidth as needed, the availability of new standardized services, easy LAN interfacing and the cost advantage of Ethernet compared to traditional telecom services.

A metro area network is exactly what it sounds like. It is a network that covers a particular city or metropolitan area consisting of the city, suburbs and any important industrial or office parks. Metro networks are careful to be accessible by businesses that are likely users of their services. This is strictly a commercial service, not for residential or home office users.

Unlike the Internet, there is no public access to Metro Ethernet Networks (MEN). They are privately operated by a network service provider who grants access only to paying customers. Even those customers can only access their own data. The network operator provides enough resources so that customers are unaware there is anyone else using the network.

What type of services can you get? Two of the most popular are E-Line and E-LAN. Both are standards established by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), an industry trade group. An big advantage of standardization is that you know what you are ordering regardless of service provider or hardware implementation.

E-Line or Ethernet Line service is the familiar point to point dedicated line connection. A EVC or Ethernet Virtual Connection is established between the UNIs (User Network Interfaces) at two locations. Your Ethernet packets travel back and forth on this EVC. It’s virtual because you don’t have a dedicated set of wires between the locations for your use only. Instead, your EVC shares the Metro Ethernet Network with other user’s EVCs.

The other popular service is E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service. This is a multi-point networking service that connects 3 or more business locations in a meshed network. This replaces propriety corporate networks created using multiple T1 lines or other dedicated bandwidth connections in a star network arrangement.

What makes E-Line and E-LAN so popular? First, you can get the connectivity you want at a lower cost than using older telecom technologies. Second, it’s Ethernet just like the Ethernet you run on your company LAN. For MAN applications, this is called Carrier Ethernet. Because it’s Ethernet, your connection to the MAN is via a standard copper or fiber Ethernet connector. There are no special interface cards needed. By tying your locations together via Carrier Ethernet, you can choose to use layer 2 switching to create a bridged LAN that includes all of the networks at your various locations around town.

Carrier Ethernet is designed to be easily scalable. You can get connections using copper technology called EoC for Ethernet over Copper in the range of 2 Mbps on up to about 45 Mbps. Fiber technology called EoF for Ethernet over Fiber covers you from 10 Mbps up to 10 Gbps. This includes the popular range of 20 to 100 Mbps that many companies desire. Note that if you have a 100 Mbps Ethernet Port installed, you can start off with 20 Mbps service and scale up to 100 Mbps with only a phone call to your service provider. If you have a Gigabit Ethernet Port installed, you can get any bandwidth up to 1,000 Mbps.

Could your company benefit from 20 to 100 Mbps Metro Ethernet? If so check prices and services for Metro Ethernet Networks available for your business locations.



Note: Photo of city lights courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.

Optical Ethernet Connections To The World

Fiber optic connections are becoming common for network operations. How about for WAN (Wide Area Network) connections? Are you limited to what’s available on Ethernet over Copper or forced to abandon Ethernet for an unrelated telecom protocol?

Not any more. Ethernet connections have become established and far more common than you might think. This does include the lower bandwidth options over twisted pair copper, but it also includes high speed services over fiber optic connections. With fiber, you can pretty much have all the bandwidth you care to pay for. That payment may also be a lot less than you think.

Ethernet over FIber or EoF offers a set of high bandwidth services that meet the specifications of the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF). All together, these standardized services are referred to as Carrier Ethernet as distinguished from Ethernet that runs on a local area network. These two types of Ethernet are highly compatible. Carrier Ethernet runs in the switched configuration only. There is no CSMA/CD capability. This is actually the way most networks run today. Nearly all use switching and routing to gain full duplex performance. Carrier Ethernet also has provisions for OAM or Operations, Administration and Maintenance that is needed by carriers to ensure that the link keeps working reliably.

There are some real advantages in having standardized services available that meet the MEF requirements. Like standardized equipment, you know what you are getting and that it will interoperate or work with similar services from other vendors. Part of the rapid expansion of Carrier Ethernet is due to the ability of exchanging traffic between service providers through an Ethernet NNI or Network to Network Interface. All carriers have limited fiber optic assets and would be constrained by their own service footprints if they couldn’t interconnect with other carriers. By entering into traffic sharing arrangements, it is possible for carriers to span the nation and the globe.

Two of the standard Ethernet services you may be interested in are E-Line or Ethernet Line and E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service. E-Line is the equivalent of the point to point private line available with T-Carrier and SONET telecom services. E-LAN is something different. This is a multipoint connection that can be used to network multiple business locations as if they were on the same bridged LAN. Everything operates at layer 2 so that switched Ethernet is available across town or to the other side of the globe.

Carrier Ethernet connections are through ports on a UNI or User Network Interface. Typical fiber optic port speeds mirror standard LAN speeds of 100 Mbps Fast Ethernet, 1000 Mbps GigE and 10,000 Mbps 10GigE. This differs a bit from standard telecom services that have unique circuit interfaces for T1, DS3, OC-3, OC-12, OC-48, etc. Many carriers find it easy to install Gigabit Ethernet ports as a standard practice and then rate limit the bandwidth to the amount ordered by the customer.

The port itself will accept traffic at any speed up to the limit of the port capability. Let’s say that’s 1 Gbps. Since you have only ordered and are paying for 150 Mbps bandwidth, that’s what you’ll have on your Ethernet Line or LAN service. The real beauty of this system becomes apparent when you need to upgrade from 150 to 500 Mbps. All you need to do is call your service provider and notify them of the change. They’ll adjust the rate limit to increase your bandwidth up to the 500 Mbps level. There is no physical change to any of the equipment in the signal path. That means the change can be implemented in a matter of days or hours rather than weeks or months.

Ethernet bandwidth services often have many bandwidth increments available. You don’t have to jump from 150 to 500 Mbps. You may be able to get 200, 250, 300, 400 or some other increment offered by the carrier. Most carriers have a fine layer of granularity available because it’s all done in software.

Can you make good use of fiber optic Ethernet connections to the Internet or other business locations? If so, get prices, features and bandwidth levels available for optical Ethernet connections to your business location.



Note: Photo of Earth from space at night courtesy of NASA on Wikimedia Commons.

Ethernet Bandwidth For Rural Areas

It is commonly assumed that there is no such thing as Ethernet WAN service beyond the city limits. That’s not really true, as you do have Ethernet connectivity options even in rural areas. Let’s see how that’s done.

Ethernet over Copper (EoC) is becoming the bandwidth service of choice for small and medium businesses. It offers the ease of Ethernet interfacing, ability to transport Ethernet services like E-Line, E-LAN and VPLS, relatively high bandwidths of 3 to 50 Mbps and even 100+ Mbps in select areas, all with provisioning over multiple twisted pair telco wiring that is already installed. Best of all, pricing is more than competitive. Where available, you’ll pay a lot less for EoC vs traditional telecom services like T1 or DS3 on an Mbps basis.

"Where available" is the catch. Ethernet over Copper technology has strict distance limitations. The modulation scheme that is used can transport high bandwidth levels, but signal levels fade rapidly as you get farther and farther away from the telco Central Office (CO). Within a mile or so you can get all sorts of bandwidth options using 2 to 8 twisted pair. As you start moving out to 2 or 3 miles away, signal levels degrade to the point where they are unusable even at low bandwidths.

That pretty much rules out EoC for most rural locations. Beyond the city limits, population densities are low and wire runs are long for telecom services. Fiber may be running right next to the gravel road you are standing on. The hitch is that there is no drop-off. The fiber just keeps on going to the next metropolitan area.

Now, there are exceptions. If you have a rural business location that luckily happens to be within a few thousand feet of the incumbent telephone company’s office, you may qualify for Ethernet over Copper services. What’s needed is for the telco or a competitive service provider to have EoC terminal equipment installed in that CO. You are less likely to find EoC equipment in smaller offices because of the limited number of businesses connected to that facility.

Don’t despair. As I said earlier, you may still have options. There is another way to transport Ethernet over copper lines with virtually unlimited reach. This is called Ethernet over DS1 or EoDS1. If DS1 sounds familiar, it’s because DS1 is the Digital Signal protocol used for T1 lines. DS1 is part of the half-century old T-Carrier specifications that define the technology for T1 and T3 lines. DS1 was originally developed to transport telephone conversations in groups of 24 channels or time slots within a time division multiplexed bit stream. Later, a concept called clear channel T1 was implemented to combine all those channels into one larger channel. That boosted bandwidth per channel from 64 Kbps up to 1.5 Mbps and made it practical to transport data using DS1.

DS1 defines the signal. T1 is the particular physical line consisting of 2 twisted pair copper telco wires with particular voltage and signal shape characteristics. Normally, DS1 and T1 go together. However, It is possible technically to transport Ethernet using DS1. What that means is that Ethernet can be sent over T1 lines. Since T1 was designed to use signal regenerators to boost sagging signal levels every mile or so, T1 service can go out into the boonies for miles, sometimes even 20 miles or more.

Ethernet over DS1 gives you the option to get Ethernet service where only T1 is available. You aren’t limited to the T1 line bandwidth of 1.5 Mbps. T1 lines can be bonded to increase bandwidth, which works for EoDS1 too. Add more lines and you get more bandwidth. It’s the number of lines bonded times 1.5 Mbps.

What about cost? EoDS1 doesn’t offer the same cost advantages as EoC because the price of T1 lines doesn’t go down if you bond more of them together. You have to pay for each line. EoDS1 also isn’t available from all carriers or in all locations.

What’s the best bandwidth solution for your company? It depends a lot on where you are located and what services you require. There’s an easy way to compare options. Simply get competitive quotes for Ethernet and other telecom services from multiple service providers, each tailored to your particular requirements.

New Carrier Ethernet Services Offered by CE 2.0

Carrier Ethernet has come out of nowhere over the last few years to be the copper and fiber connection service of choice. There are a lot of good reasons why companies are switching to Ethernet bandwidth service in droves. Now they’ll have even more choices since the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) has introduced Carrier Ethernet 2.0.

Did you know that there was a Carrier Ethernet 1.0? That’s the moniker of the original set of standards that defined Carrier Ethernet. It wasn’t called that until these new services were introduced and the MEF needed a term to describe the existing standards. Not to worry. Both CE 1.0 and CE 2.0 are compatible. What Carrier Ethernet 2.0 does is expand the set of defined standardized Ethernet services from 3 to 8.

What are these new Ethernet services and what can they do for your company? Let’s take a look at what we have now. The role of the MEF has been to extend the LAN Ethernet standard that has become almost universal for interconnecting computer systems in-house so that it will work for Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN) and Wide Area Networks (WAN). Part of getting Ethernet on telecom carrier networks has been to standardize service offerings so that they will be similar and compatible from network to network. That’s led to three popular standardized Ethernet services. These are E-Line, E-LAN and E-Tree.

Ethernet Line (E-Line) service is the familiar point to point dedicated private line. Only your traffic exists on this line service and it only connects two locations. Companies often buy private lines to connect a remote data center, branch office, factory or warehouse back to headquarters. T1 lines are popular on the low end (1.5 Mbps), DS3 for modest bandwidths of 45 Mbps, and SONET fiber optic services for higher bandwidth requirements. Ethernet Line Service does all of this as well or better. E-Line is also used for dedicated Ethernet Internet Access connections.

E-Line offers several big advantages over legacy telecom private line services. First, it is Ethernet. That means it is inherently compatible with your existing local network. Simply connect your network edge router to the Ethernet connection installed by your service provider and you are in business. There is no need to worry about any fancy protocol conversions to make things work. E-Line bandwidths are far more scalable than other solutions. You can get just about any bandwidth level you desire, up to the maximum capacity of the installed port. You only need to make a hardware change if you need a faster port. Finally, Ethernet is less costly than T-Carrier or SONET on a per Mbps basis. It is not uncommon to get twice the bandwidth for the same cost as you are paying for a legacy service.

Ethernet LAN (E-LAN) service is a multipoint service designed to connect multiple business locations. This is a mesh network, similar to your LAN. All locations can communicate with each other easily. Ethernet LAN is just that. It creates a bridged connection among three or more geographically dispersed LANs.

Ethernet Tree (E-Tree) service is a hub and spoke network like the one many companies built themselves to connect a HQ location to many branch offices or franchises. Tree structures are also used for broadcast distribution. All locations communicate with the hub, but not each other. Traffic between leaves in the tree network are managed by the central hub.

E-Line, E-LAN and E-Tree are the three standardized Carrier Ethernet services of CE 1.0. The service types for each of these are doubled in CE 2.0 to include private and virtual private variants.

Ethernet Access (E-Access) is something new with two service types created for CE 2.0. This is something for wholesale access services, where a larger network sells Carrier Ethernet services to a smaller network through an Ethernet Network to Network Interface (ENNI). The two services are Access EPL (Ethernet Private Line) and Access EVPL (Ethernet Virtual Private Line). One of the additional features of CE 2.0 is the addition of a standardized ENNI so that networks can connect worldwide and offer Carrier Ethernet with an enormous service footprint.

Is your company looking at expanded or alternative interconnection services? This would be a good time to get a fresh set of Carrier Ethernet quotes for one or more business locations. The level of competition among Ethernet carriers is intense, with more services at lower prices being provided in nearly all markets compared to even a year ago.

How To Find Better Metro E Service Prices

Metro E or Metro Ethernet services are available in most cities. Businesses with a strong presence in a particular metropolitan area can use Metro E to good advantage in linking their various satellite offices, warehouses, factories, retail outlets and so on. The big issue is how can these companies be sure they are getting the best prices on the Metro Ethernet services they put on contract.

Metro Ethernet is a subset of the MAN or Metropolitan Area Network. Metro networks sprung up to address the needs of local businesses who didn’t necessarily need connections to other cities and states. What they really need is a way to connect from their headquarters location to their remotely located data center or backup data center miles away. Other connections are needed for branch offices and other operational locations.

This need for high performance, but local, network connections led to the rise of MAN operators. Like telcos or ISPs, they provide a set of services. In this case, it is most often access to a fiber optic ring that encircles the city and includes key suburbs, office and industrial parks. Last mile connections are provided from each business subscriber to the fiber ring. These can be fiber optic links or twisted pair copper connections depending on the bandwidth needed.

Most Metro networks were constructed using dual SONET rings with a working ring and a protection ring carrying traffic in opposite directions. Standard SONET ring protection offers an automatic failover within 50 mSec if the main ring fails for any reason. This self-healing capability improves the resiliency of SONET fiber optic networks to survive equipment failures and severed lines called “backhoe fade.”

SONET services include OC3, OC12 and OC48 telecom services. DS3 is also often available multiplexed on OC3 services. One issue with SONET is that the service levels aren’t very granular. There a big step, for instance, between OC3 at 155 Mbps and OC12 and 622 Mbps.

Metro Ethernet, also called Carrier Ethernet, addresses many of the limitations of legacy SONET services. Metro E may be provided as a service on SONET networks called Ethernet over SONET. This way the underlying network can be kept in place avoiding large construction costs. Some newer metropolitan networks are IP based to begin with. They offer Ethernet services by default.

One issue is ease of interfacing with the MAN. Ethernet is the standard protocol of company LANs. With an Ethernet connection to the MAN, you simply plug an Ethernet patch cord, fiber or copper, between your network edge router and the carrier’s demarcation connection. SONET requires a special interface card to do the protocol conversion between Ethernet, a network protocol, and SONET, a telecommunications protocol. SONET interfaces are unique OC3, OC12, OC48 and so on. Ethernet interfaces are ports with maximum speeds. A typical Ethernet port is 100 Mbps, 1000 Mbps or 10 Gbps. These support any network speed up to the maximum the installed port can handle. This make it easy for service providers to offer an almost infinite selection of bandwidths to their customers.

Since everything stays in the Ethernet protocol end to end, Metro E can be used to bridge multiple company LANs in the metro area. This is called Ethernet LAN service or E-LAN. You can also get point to point private line connections called Ethernet Line service or E-Line.

Metro E also addresses another limitation of SONET, which is historically high costs. Ethernet services of similar bandwidth are often half the price of their SONET equivalent. Extensive scalability also means that companies can select a bandwidth level closer to what they actually need instead of being cramped for speed or having to order way more than can be practically put to use.

How can you be sure that you are getting the best Metro Ethernet or even SONET MAN service prices? The best way is to work through a bandwidth broker that represents dozens of top tier service providers. Not only do you save time with one-stop shopping, but it is likely that you’ll get quotes from competitive carriers that you may not even be aware of.

Are you currently using metropolitan area network services or have a new requirement for metro bandwidth? If so, get prices and availability of Metro E and SONET network services from providers that serve your business locations.



Note: Photograph of Pittsburgh skyline part of a panorama courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Your Ethernet Connection To The World

It’s a given that you need to connect your business location to the outside world to reach your own geographically separated business locations and to reach anyone, anywhere, on Earth. There are various protocols that will get you this connectivity. The most popular is quickly becoming Carrier Ethernet service. Let’s see why.

Carrier Ethernet is an extension to the switched circuit Ethernet protocol that is nearly the universal for Local Area Networks (LANs). You know that there is a distance limitation to LAN Ethernet networks, especially for those running on Cat 5e/6 twisted pair copper wiring. How is it that Ethernet can now reach across town, to the other side of the country and around the world?

You can thank the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) for setting the standards that make long distance Ethernet possible. The MEF is an industry alliance of over 175 organizations who have a vested interest in Carrier Ethernet. Because carriers and manufacturers have agreed to work within these standards, it is possible to have interoperability among Carrier Ethernet systems worldwide.

What’s different about the MAN and WAN versions of Ethernet is that they are transported rather than running natively on the copper or fiber cabling. Technologies that enable this are Provider Backbone Bridges (PBB), Provider Backbone Bridge Traffic Engineering (PBB-TE), Provider Backbone Transport (PBT) and Carrier-Ethernet Transport (CET). Connectivity-Fault Management (CFM-OAM) technology adds operations, administration and management features needed to operate metro and long haul communications networks.

Note that the term Carrier Ethernet applies to Metropolitan Ethernet, also called Metro Ethernet, as well as longer haul networks that go beyond the immediate metropolitan area that is the domain of Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN). That’s because metro and wide area networks are more alike than different. They all involve use of a common carrier to transport the signal rather than private ownership of an in-house local area network.

The MEF has standardized Carrier Ethernet services regardless of the transport mechanism. E-Line is the familiar private point to point line service that is popular with T1, DS3 and SONET telecom services. E-Line gives you a direct ethernet connection between two Ethernet ports located across town or at any distance. E-LAN, or Ethernet LAN Service, is a multipoint to multipoint mesh network that covers multiple locations. These could be branch offices or franchise locations. E-LAN can bridge your multiple site LANs so that they act like one larger network.

Another service is E-Tree which is a point to multi-point service, not meshed. The center or root locations can communicate with any of the remote or leaf locations, but those leaf locations cannot directly communicate. They have to route all traffic through the roots that may or may not pass it on. This is similar to the proprietary star networks that companies have deployed to create their own private wide area networks.

Ethernet can be carried over twisted pair copper as EoC or Ethernet over Copper. It can also be transported over T1 (EoDS1) or DS3 (EoDS3) to take advantage of existing infrastructure. Ethernet can also be provided over fiber optic networks including legacy SONET/SDH and the newer Ethernet over Fiber (EoF) running on native IP networks. MPLS networks can easily transport Ethernet services as pseudowires using MPLS label switched paths. This expands the offerings to include Virtual Private Wire Service (VPWS) and Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS).

In addition to the availability of standardized Ethernet services over MAN and WAN distances, Carrier Ethernet also offers the advantages of easy interfacing, granular scalability with nearly any bandwidth level available, and considerably lower cost than traditional telecom services. It is not unusual to get twice the bandwidth for the same price or cut your bandwidth costs in half by switching to Carrier Ethernet services.

Is your company looking for a bandwidth upgrade or to expand connectivity beyond your current network? Perhaps you’re curious to see if you could realize a considerable cost savings? If so, get pricing and options for Carrier Ethernet solutions now.

Extending Ethernet over MPLS Networks

Ethernet started out as a local area network protocol, but is quickly becoming the metropolitan area network protocol of choice. It offers easy interfacing to existing wired and wireless business networks, rapid bandwidth scaling without equipment changes, and a lower cost structure than traditional telecom services. If Ethernet is so great for the LAN and MAN, how about Ethernet for the WAN?

Ethernet WAN is enjoying a rising popularity, especially among companies with multiple business sites located across the United States and across international borders. You can get dedicated point to point wired Ethernet connections between any two locations, but a competing methodology that is gaining steam is Ethernet over MPLS.

Why use an MPLS network to transport your Ethernet traffic? The first reason is that MPLS networks are already in place and going where you want to send your traffic. Sure, you can custom engineer a dedicated private line service, but why re-invent the wheel? Ethernet is easily transported over MPLS networks using Pseudowire encapsulation that emulates the wireline it competes with. Which do you think is going to be less expensive? Paying for a custom point to point wireline connection or being one stream of traffic on a large MPLS network?

The way it tends to work out is that short haul Ethernet links have the cost advantage when implemented as dedicated lines. This is especially true if you are nowhere near an MPLS carrier node. Once you start looking at coast to coast transport or a situation where you want multiple Ethernet LANs connected in a transparent mesh network, MPLS networks gain the advantage. MPLS also has the edge when you want to cross international borders to include foreign sites on your corporate network.

Carriers may be muddying the water even further by offering Ethernet line services that consist of copper or fiber Ethernet access connections to their MPLS network core, where the long haul Ethernet transport really takes place.

There are several types of Ethernet services that are really popular right now. One is E-Line or Ethernet Private Line service. This is a standardized service specified by the MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum). It gives you a Carrier Ethernet connection that bridges two LANs. A variation is EVPL or Ethernet Virtual Private LIne. What EVPL does is let you use a single physical Ethernet port to connect to multiple Ethernet private lines going to out to geographically diverse locations. This is something you could use to replace a star network built on independent wireline connections to those same remote locations.

Another popular service is E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service, also called VPLS or Virtual Private LAN Service when implemented on an IP/MPLS network. While Ethernet Line Service replaces dedicated point to point telecom lines, Ethernet LAN is a meshed network service that interconnects multiple locations on an any-to-any basis. With VPLS, you bridge your multiple LANs so that they act as one giant LAN network. That’s true even if you have a hundred or thousand sites in the U.S. and and equal number spread out over the globe.

What carrier can offer this level of MPLS networking? Actually, there are several to choose from. If one can’t serve all your sites, multiple carriers can share traffic through a E-NNI or Ethernet Network to Network Interface to reach all locations with VPLS or E-Line connections. If you need this type of connectivity, you may be surprised by how affordable it has become recently. Get Ethernet over MPLS service prices now and see how far your network can really reach.

What is Ethernet Service?

Carrier Ethernet services for business are becoming more and more popular. If you’ve been hearing about Ethernet service and wondering if it makes sense for your company, here’s what it’s all about.

Ethernet is the most popular LAN protocol by far. It’s hard to remember that not that many years ago there were all sorts of competing network protocols. Now switched Ethernet is almost universal. Something similar is underway with telecom services. We’re in the process of changing over from switched circuit technologies popularized by a century of telephone development to packet switched networks more compatible with computing devices. As you might suspect, Ethernet is making its bid to become the universal protocol of metropolitan and long haul networks.

Ethernet originated at Xerox PARC as a short distance communications technology to interconnect computing equipment. It was intended for use within an office or building. Communication farther than this required interface to telecom technologies, such as T-Carrier, SONET and Frame Relay.

Over the years, Ethernet has been extended and improved with the introduction of switching to eliminate the problem of collisions and fiber optics to increase network speeds. What has remained the same until recently is that connection to the outside world required conversion to a different set of protocols and back again at the other end. This is the last frontier of Ethernet networking that is now being addressed by Carrier Ethernet.

What is Carrier Ethernet? It’s the same as Ethernet, only extended to work over long distances on a telecommunications network. Carrier Ethernet standards have been developed by the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), an industry standards body. By introducing MEF compliant Ethernet services, carriers can be assured that their services will work with readily available customer and provider interface equipment and that network providers will be able to exchange traffic. They do that through an Ethernet Network to Network Interface (E-NNI).

Two of the most popular Ethernet services are E-Line or Ethernet Line Service and E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service. E-Line is a point to point dedicated line service that replaces traditional private lines such as T1, DS3 and OC-3. One end of the line can be connected to an Internet Service Provider give you Ethernet Internet service. In addition, E-LAN offers a many to many or meshed connection so that numerous business locations can be tied together on one large Ethernet network.

How about bandwidth? There are two physical layer options available. They are Ethernet over Copper (EoC) and Ethernet over Fiber (EoF). Ethernet over Copper is a direct T1 line replacement. It uses the same twisted pair copper telco wiring that T1 is provisioned over. Multiple pairs are employed to increase line speed. Popular EoC speeds are 2 Mbps, 3 Mbps, 5 Mbps, 10 Mbps 15 Mbps and 20 Mbps. Copper based Ethernet is distance sensitive, so the closer you are to the central office, the higher speed you can obtain. It’s not uncommon to get 25 Mbps, 50 Mbps, 100 Mbps or higher bandwidths for connections under a mile.

Ethernet over FIber picks up where Ethernet over Copper leaves off. Bandwidths from 10 Mbps to 10 Gbps are readily available, meeting the needs of just about any business.

In addition to easy interfacing and options such as E-LAN, a major draw of Carrier Ethernet services is their reduced cost. It’s not uncommon to get twice the bandwidth for the same money with Ethernet versus other telecom services. Also, that bandwidth is more easily scalable. The carrier equipment design makes it easy and fast to increase and decrease bandwidth as needed, up to the maximum speed of the installed port.

Are you interested in what Carrier Ethernet can do to support your business? If so, get instant online pricing for Ethernet services up to 1 Gbps and prompt quotes for other services to 10 Gbps.



Note: Ethernet patch cords photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Metro Ethernet vs MPLS Networking

In addition to dedicated Internet access, many companies also need point to point private lines and/or multipoint network connections. The classic way to accomplish this has been to lease private lines to create your own wide area network setup. There are two other methods available that can give you the same results for considerably less cost.

Metro Ethernet service has been seen as a way to get point to point connections in town at a lower cost than leasing dedicated line services, such as DS3 or OC3. This service is called E-Line or Ethernet Line. It’s is standardized by the MEF (Metro Ethernet Forum) so you can compare E-Line services from multiple vendors and know that you are getting the same product.

What’s the difference between ordering an E-Line connection at 50 Mbps versus a DS3 dedicated line at 45 Mbps? When you order a dedicated line, you can envision having a pair of wires going from your headquarters, through a cross-connect at the telco central office and then out to your branch office. That’s probably true for a T1 line provisioned on two twisted copper pair. When you get into DS3 and higher bandwidths, your connection will probably be carried via SONET fiber optic service using an add/drop multiplexer. Along the way, your signal will be traveling with many other who share the same fiber strand.

Here’s what’s important: Unless you actually go out and construct or lease the copper or fiber transmission medium, you are using a shared or multi-tenant service. It’s true with Metro Ethernet and MPLS Networks. It’s also true with dedicated line services. The difference is that MPLS and Metro Ethernet are packet switched networks while T-Carrier and SONET services are circuit switched. With circuit switching, the circuit is used only for your traffic on a single path that is “nailed up” for the time you hold the lease. With packet switching, other traffic can share common paths through the network. That does two things. It lowers the price of the service and it makes some additional services possible.

Metro Ethernet has both an Ethernet Private Line and Ethernet Virtual Private Line service available. The virtualization means that you only need to install one Carrier Ethernet port to have connections with two or more locations. The actual physical line is shared among your own traffic. You may have ten or more branch offices, retail stores or other locations in town. With EVPL you can have point to point connections to many locations coming in through one UNI (User Network Interface).

Here’s another service you can get with Metro Ethernet. It’s called E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service. This is a meshed network that lets many locations all communicate without going through a single point. E-LAN is popular for interconnecting a company’s many independent LANs in the same geographical area. This can be done at the layer 2 level so that the entire network looks like one giant bridged network.

Interconnecting multiple locations is also the domain of MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks. Many of these have regional, national or even international service footprints so that all of your far flung locations can interact on the same network. MPLS may be the solution of choice for covering geographical areas larger than a single city and its suburbs. MPLS can also be used to create point to point connections for only two locations. When those locations are located on opposite coasts or in different countries, MPLS can be a better deal than Ethernet Line service or point to point dedicated line services.

Since Ethernet and MPLS services overlap to some extent, what criteria do you use to make a choice? I’d recommend getting price quotes for these, plus dedicated lines, and comparing the total lease cost for the same bandwidth and other requirements. You can get networking bandwidth quotes from multiple service providers quickly and easily using the GeoQuote tool. In fact, many line services to 1 Gbps quote automatically online.

WAN Computer Network Connections

Computer networks are often categorized as LAN, MAN and WAN. The LAN is your local network. You design and maintain it to meet your specifications. Or, you hire a contractor to do this. When you need to connect your LAN to another LAN across town or around the world, you enter the realm of the MAN and WAN. Here’s a quick look at what’s available in the way of metro and long haul connections.

The difference between the MAN and the WAN is largely a matter of degree. The MAN is a Metropolitan Area Network. As the name suggests, MAN services are limited to a particular city or city and suburbs. It’s the right connectivity for companies that have multiple offices in the same city, a main facility and a remote data center across town, a factory or warehouse in an industrial park plus some satellite offices. Hospitals and their associated medical centers are good candidates for MAN service, especially higher bandwidths for medical image transmission.

A difference between the LAN and MAN is that you own your LAN and buy services from the MAN. A Metropolitan Area Network is typically privately owned and offers services to numerous clients. The network operator manages bandwidth and security to ensure that every customer feels like they have the network all to themselves.

Most MANs are organized as SONET rings that encircle the metropolitan area. A SONET ring is actually two fibers with the same traffic running in opposite directions. One is the primary service and the other is the backup. This is done to ensure reliability. If one fiber or its associated equipment experiences a failure, service is automatically switched to the other fiber in the ring within 50 milliseconds. SONET has designated service levels at OC-3 (155 Mbps), OC-12 (622 Mbps), OC-24 (1.24 Gbps), OC-48 (2.49 Gbps), OC-192 (9.95 Gbps) or OC-768 (39.8 Gbps). You may also be able to get DS3 service multiplexed onto an OC-3 service for transport across town.

Newer metro networks may offer Carrier Ethernet instead of SONET. Ethernet is highly scalable from as low as 1 Mbps on up through 10 Gigabit Ethernet. Popular MAN service levels are 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1,000 Mbps or GigE. An advantage of Ethernet is that changes in service level can be accomplished faster than with traditional SONET. You can also get layer 2 Ethernet connectivity, such as E-Line and E-LAN, to connect your LANs at other locations into one large bridged network. The MAN itself may have an IP core or be running as Ethernet over SONET to use existing facilities.

Think of the WAN as a very large MAN and you probably won’t be far off. WAN networks may also have SONET rings or IP core networks. They are certainly fiber optic based and often with so many strands that you can lease wavelengths or even dark fibers. Many WAN networks are structured as MPLS or Multi-Protocol Label Switching networks for flexibility. A MPLS network has inherent security due to a propriety routing technology that is not IP. MPLS networks can transport any protocol by encapsulating the packets within the switching labels.

WAN networks may have a regional, national or international footprint. Some are designed with low latency paths that are especially important for financial trading. WAN networks may also peer with other networks of similar size to share traffic. The newest wrinkle is the Ethernet Exchange that exchanges Ethernet traffic without having to first convert it to SONET.

How do you connect to a WAN network? Often you can pick the connection that is both readily available and lowest in cost for your particular application. These range from T1 lines to Ethernet over Copper, Ethernet over Fiber, and SONET last mile connections. In some cases, fixed wireless access is also available. The mix of copper, fiber and wireless access should accommodate just about any need.

Do you have a need to connect your LAN to another facility across town, or to locations in other states or countries? Compare prices and availability of various MAN and WAN connectivity options to meet your requirements.