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Tech Perspective: Ethernet WAN services

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by techperspective

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The metropolitan Ethernet provider is emerging as a viable new alternative for enterprises. By offering a lot more bandwidth for a lot less money, these vendors are changing the way enterprises think about networks. But before you begin shopping fora new provider, Gartner advises that you consider the current limitations and risks. Current providers are not quite up to speed, and restricted geographic coverage areas and service offerings need to be taken into account.

Are you interested in deploying an Ethernet WAN? How do emerging technologies such as VoIP affect your decisions? How would an Ethernet WAN affect your existing infrastructure? What infrastructure do you currently use for MAN or WAN networking? How will you consider implementing 10-GB Ethernet as part of your backbone?

You can read the related Gartner article, which will be posted 3 A.M. Monday, at
https://www.techrepublic.com/article.jhtml?id=r00220010521ggp01.htm

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by malcolm.macdonald

My company is actively pursuing an Ethernet WAN. The primary purpose is for Internet access which has grown exponentially at my company. Our T1 connections in each office are not enough.
VoIP is something we may go to, but was a very small factorin our inital venture in to Ethernet WAN providers.
We have an existing Frame Relay connection between our 4 US offices with WorldCom. We do not plan on removing those connections anytime soon.
We will consider the 10-MB Ethernet connections as apart of our backbone after we have connected each of our sites and have seen the performance for both the Internet and test connections between our offices. We will likely use our existing VPN hardware to establish the WAN links in parallel to our Frame connections.
We are currently going forward with Cogent who has access in our Chicago office and has promised access in our NY, San Francisco and Stamford, CT offices.
We are on month to month contracts that can be canceled anytime before installation. In addition the installation and first month is free so our only costs are for Cisco hardware to support the higher bandwidth connections, Cisco 2511 routers, and as much as $1,000 for a month of service. If we are not happy that is our only committment.
If it were not for the very open agreements we have we would not be pursuing Cogent connections at this time.

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