MEF Starts Ethernet Countdown

LONDON -- Nan Chen, President of the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) announced today that August 2003 is the target completion month for their key Metro Ethernet Service specifications. Metro Ethernet is one area of IT tipped for outstanding growth, despite the current economic downturn, and both major players and hot start-ups in the telecom arena now have this summer highlighted as a critical turning point. Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) set this target completion time for both Ethernet Line (point-to-point) Service (E-Line) and Ethernet LAN (multipoint-to-multipoint) Service (E-LAN) specifications across the metropolitan area - removing the final obstacle, the lack of a standardized Ethernet service specification, for a rapid global service revenue predicted to exceed $14 billion by 2005.“It’s the green light for an eagerly awaited market opportunity” according to Nan Chen, President of the MEF. “The last decade has seen LAN capacity expand some 100-fold, and backbone capacity more like 300-fold - that’s how much people want connectivity - while the real bottleneck has been in the metropolitan area, with a bare 16-fold increase. Until now, metro networking has come at the cost of a major step change from Ethernet to more expensive, less familiar and less flexible technologies like ATM or SONET/SDH. All that is set to change with the advent of carrier-class Ethernet services and transport.”“In survey after survey, European carriers confirm Metro Ethernet as their hottest area within the transmission market”, agrees Ian Keene, VP and Chief Analyst, Gartner Group. “Even where overall spend is flat or reducing, the metro area is where their budget is focused. Over the past three years, European carriers have been working towards a 100% IP infrastructure for delivering services to their enterprise customers. The real drawback has been the bandwidth limitations in the metro area - spending there is a very high priority according to current research. And that’s just the top end of the market: at the other extreme there’s a significant opportunity for start-up companies offering low-cost bundled services - phone, Internet, tv, interactive tv and video on demand - to homes and small businesses.”Metro Ethernet Forum