Verizon Enterprise Solutions is expanding its range of Ethernet services for business users into a number of new territories in Central and Eastern Europe (C&E Europe), the carrier announced today. (See VZ Expands Services.)

Verizon Business (formerly MCI in Europe) said its Ethernet Private Line (EPL), a point-to-point Ethernet-over-Sonet/SDH service, is now available in the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia, as well as other European markets. Speeds up to GigE are supported.

Businesses in those three C&E Europe markets can now also get the operator's Ethernet Access to Verizon Private IP service, with access bandwidth speeds ranging from 1 Mbit/s to GigE.

The carrier also plans to extend its Converged Packet Architecture (CPA), which aggregates legacy and IP services onto the same Ethernet connection, to Europe and Asia/Pacific, and is set to take its multipoint-to-multipoint Ethernet service, the Leading Lights award-winning Virtual Private LAN, international next year. (See Verizon Unveils VPLS and LR Names 2007 Leading Lights Winners.)

The international operator joins a growing list of service providers that have launched, or plan to launch, Ethernet services into the region's emerging markets. Its rival, Orange Business Services , plans to extend its International Ethernet Link service, launched in April this year, to Eastern Europe (particularly Poland) in 2008.

That trend, which will be covered in a Light Reading Webinar, High-Performance Ethernet Services Opportunities for Central/Eastern Europe, on Wednesday, October 17, is also creating new opportunities for Ethernet systems vendors. (See Czech Out Ethernet's New Euro Hotspots.)

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading

Interested in learning more on this topic? Then come to The Future of Carrier Ethernet: Eastern Europe 2007, a conference focused on the evolution of Ethernet as the technology of choice for enabling next-gen services in telecom networks. To be staged in Warsaw, Poland, November 27, admission is free for attendees meeting our prequalification criteria. For more information, or to register, click here.