The market for Ethernet is continuing to grow, as UK organisations appreciate the cost savings, performance and efficiency gains to be made from deploying services based on this transport technology. Businesses that choose Ethernet-based connectivity for their corporate Local and Wide Area Networks can expect greatly increased productivity and profitability, as well as significant competitive advantage, from the capacity to introduce new applications and services to customers and staff. When choosing an Ethernet service provider, companies need to consider a range of factors including: the fibre-based coverage offered by the provider the methods used to protect, optimise and guarantee network performance the price and flexibility of deploying future services. 1 Introduction
More and more enterprises are choosing Ethernet connectivity for Internet Protocol (IP) services %u2013 not just for their Local Area Networks (LANs) but also as a means of easily, flexibly and cost-effectively connecting geographically spread sites.
Ethernet offers superior network performance at vastly reduced cost compared to traditional Leased Lines or services based on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) or Frame Relay transport technologies. It makes it affordable and achievable for organisations of any size to create a single network that is easier to manage, provides the flexibility to grow with the business and enables new applications to be added as required, simply and cost-effectively.
The tangible business and IT management benefits of the technology are fuelling massive growth in the adoption of Ethernet services by UK corporations, with market estimates for continued growth over the next few years already being exceeded.
2 Business drivers