DALLAS -- AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) today announced expanded global reach for AT&T’s Ethernet portfolio with the immediate availability of a virtual private local area network service (VPLS) in 14 countries across Europe and Asia Pac.

AT&T’s VPLS service, called OPT-E-WANSM, enables businesses to link multiple locations – whether across the city or around the world – with the ease and efficiency of a flat Ethernet wide area network that can be extended globally. The service is now available in a total of 15 countries – United States; Germany, United Kingdom, Belgium, France, Netherlands, Sweden, Ireland, Italy, Spain and Switzerland in Europe; and Hong Kong, Australia, Singapore and Japan in Asia Pacific.

OPT-E-WAN uses the same simple and highly scalable Ethernet interfaces and so global businesses will have a great deal of flexibility to mix and match bandwidth and security among locations. This will allow network managers to assign network resources across the virtual local area networks (LANs) with a level of sophistication not possible before.

Demand for Ethernet services worldwide continues to expand. This growth is being driven by the need that businesses of all sizes have for affordable and easy-to-manage bandwidth to support next-generation enterprise applications including disaster recovery, storage and converged voice and video.

“OPT-E-WAN provides global users with a new level of choices for establishing virtual LAN or WAN connections, as well as complementing their existing VPN infrastructure. Customers are able to add OPT-E-WAN connectivity to support their emerging high bandwidth applications,” said Sanford Brown, vice president, AT&T Connectivity and Metro Network Services.

AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T)