What is an Ethernet Connection?

When we think of connecting to the outside world, what comes to mind is traditional telecom services. Those include POTS and PRI telephone lines for voice and T1, DS3 and OCx SONET for data. A newer technology that deserves a closer look is Carrier Ethernet. It’s Ethernet in the WAN to match up with Ethernet on the LAN.

The idea of extending an Ethernet connection from your building or campus to the Internet or another facility on the other side of the country might seem a bit odd at first. After all, the legacy telecom carriers have pretty much owned that space for over a century. That’s all changing fast. New competitive service providers are coming into the bandwidth marketplace without the history or traditions of using telco standards to define their networks. That frees them to take a “blank sheet” look at what a Wide Area Network (WAN) should be, how it should be priced and what services it should offer.

Let’s say, for the sake of discussion, that the WAN starts where the LAN leaves off. I know that there’s often something called the MAN or Metropolitan Area Network in-between. MAN and WAN technologies are more alike than different. It’s mostly a matter of scale. While the MAN tends to cover a city and perhaps suburbs, the WAN has no geographical limitation. WAN services can be regional, national or even international.

Now let’s consider Ethernet WAN connections. Ethernet is the packet switching protocol now nearly ubiquitous on Local Area Networks. It wasn’t always that way. Even a few decades ago, there were competing standards such as Token Ring. Ethernet has become so popular now that the economy of manufacturing scale makes it more economical to implement than other standards. Ethernet has taken over the LAN, but it is just starting to make inroads on the WAN. In the coming decades, we may see a repeat of Ethernet dominance for local, metropolitan and wide area networks.

The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) has done the standardization work necessary to establish what’s known as Carrier Ethernet. This frees LAN Ethernet from its distance limitations so that it can connect from your building to the other side of the world. The MEF has also standardized Ethernet services so that the Ethernet you get from one carrier is the same as you get from another. This makes competitive bidding possible, driving down the cost for the buyer. It also enables carriers to extend their service footprint by interconnecting with other carriers through Ethernet Network to Network Interfaces (E-NNI).

WAN Ethernet has some definite advantages over the legacy telecom services we’re used to. First is the interface. If you want to connect to a T1 line or DS3 service, you need a specialized piece of equipment or a very specific plug-in module for your router. You can’t just take an Ethernet patch cord and connect your edge router to the carrier’s “smart jack.” The protocols are completely different. However, you can do exactly that with an Ethernet connection. Most often the carrier provides a common RJ-45 jack or a managed router that you simply patch into.

Second is services. You can order Ethernet Line Service to mimic the point to point or last mile dedicated Internet connections that you have with T1 or DS3. You can also order Ethernet LAN service. That’s a multipoint networking service that ties together multiple business locations. You don’t need to mess around with running individual private lines to each location. They all connect through the Ethernet LAN service.

Unlike T-Carrier and SONET services, Ethernet is highly scalable. In other words, you can get a wide range of bandwidths delivered to your installed Ethernet port. That will prove valuable if business suddenly increases and you need to increase your WAN bandwidth to handle the traffic. A change in bandwidth level can often be handled with a telephone call to your provider, with no need wait for equipment to be replaced.

Finally, Ethernet WAN connections have a cost advantage. It’s not uncommon to get twice the bandwidth for the same price as a T1 line. At higher speeds, the cost savings is even more dramatic.

You owe it yourself to at least compare services and pricing for Ethernet WAN connections to what you have now to see if you may be missing out on cost and performance benefits. Ethernet WAN is available over both twisted pair copper and fiber optic cabling.

Your Point to Point Ethernet Connection

Any company with two or more locations that need to be interconnected to share data have a need for point to point line service. The traditional solution is a T1 data line with 1.5 Mbps of bandwidth. Today, you have more options.

If it’s just a matter of increasing bandwidth on a T1 service that works just fine, you do have the option to bind in additional T1 lines. An extra T1 gives you 3 Mbps, 4 T1s are good for 6 Mbps, and 7 T1’s will get you up to 10 Mbps. Outside of metro areas, this may be your best bet. But if you are located within a large metropolitan area, point to point Ethernet might be a better choice.

Why? It’s a matter of cost and service options. Bonding T1 lines incrementally increases bandwidth and cost by about the same amount. Ethernet, however, is generally lower on a per Mbps basis, especially as bandwidth increases. That 10 Mbps connection might cost you half or less than you’ll pay for bonded T1.

Ethernet sounds like a perfect fit for linking two LANs, and it is. Your data starts off as Ethernet, continues through the WAN service as Ethernet, and is back on your far end LAN as Ethernet. Not only is that inherently efficient, but you also get the option to make that connection at layer 2 rather than layer 3. In short, you can treat your two locations as being on the same bridged Ethernet LAN rather than completely separate networks that happen to have a telecom link.

What you are looking for is called E-Line service. It’s a direct replacement for TDM private lines, such as T1. It is implemented as a single EVC or Ethernet Virtual Connection between two UNIs or User Network Interfaces. Think of it is a very long Ethernet cable between Location A and Location B.

While E-Line service is the most popular Ethernet bandwidth connection, there are some other Ethernet services that you may also want to know about. One is EVPL or Ethernet Virtual Private Line. Why would you want a virtual rather than an actual Ethernet line? The difference is that multiple Ethernet services can be carried on the EVPL. You’ll have one physical connection to your building, but you may be bringing in a dozen or so Ethernet virtual private lines.

If you have multiple locations that all want to communicate with each other, you need more of a meshed network that simple point to point lines. That’s where E-LAN or Ethernet LAN service shines. Each location connects to the “cloud” network via an Ethernet line service. All locations can then communicate as if they were on the same LAN.

A third service is called E-Tree. This is a point to multipoint connection that is useful for content delivery to multiple users. The users have no interaction with each other and simply get their content from the “root” organization.

Is one or more of these Ethernet services right for your organization? Why not price out the options and then decide. Get your inquiry in now and see how much you can save over your other networking choices.