Metro Ethernet

The U.S. Incumbent Landscape

While the greenfield operators were fast to build their metro networks, the U.S. incumbents took a sit-and-watch approach to see how the market would shake out. If the greenfield metro Ethernet model were to succeed, it would start stealing customers from the incumbents, thereby affecting the deployment of their private-line services. Threatened by the newcomers, the RBOCs and IXCs, such as SBC, Verizon, Bellsouth, Qwest, and MCI, initiated requests for information (RFIs) to solicit information from vendors about how to deliver Ethernet services in the metro.

The challenges the incumbents face in deploying metro Ethernet are very different than the challenges of the greenfields. This section discusses some of those ...