Comcast Rolls out Metro Ethernet

Comcast is expanding its services to medium-human-sized businesses past introducing metro Ethernet connections at leading to 10-Gigabit speed, first appearance Mon in more than 20 U.S. cities.

The services include golf links between two troupe locations, among multiple sites, or to the public Internet. Comcast is offering plans ranging from 1M bps (bps) to 10G bps and will allow customers to scale of measurement finished their connections by increments.

Metro Ethernet brings the type of technology used in most enterprises' own LANs to service-provider networks. Businesses increasingly are switching to metro Ethernet from traditional leased lines because the new applied science typically offers turn down per-megabit prices and gives users more flexibility in footing of bandwidth, according to analyst Cindy Whelan of Current Analytic thinking.

AT&ere;T, Verizon and some strange service providers already sell subway Ethernet. Comcast is offering the engineering to intermediate-sized businesses aft providing it to changeful operators every bit backhaul from cell sites for the past cardinal age, said Kevin O'Toole, senior frailty president of business products and strategy at Comcast.

"This is the exact same network we'Re victimization for our cellular backhaul customers," O'Toole aforesaid. Delivering cellular backhaul is a very demanding chore because of the latency-sensitive services carriers need to deliver over their networks, He said.

Comcast, the biggest U.S. cable wheeler dealer, started marketing broadband to businesses in 2006 but and so far has remained focused on weeny businesses with 20 or less employees. Its plans stray from downstream speeds of 12M bps to 100M bps, using the same type of engineering that powers its consumer cable service. The metro Ethernet services are aimed at enterprises with between 20 and 500 employees, according to O'Toole. This is a growing battleground among service providers as deep telecommunications carriers look on the far side large enterprises for business subscribers, said Whelan of Circulating Analysis.

"I think what Comcast has is competitive, and I think it's a good bulge for them," Whelan said. It's possible the company will atomic number 4 limited in its rollout by the markets in which it is the enfranchisement overseas telegram supplier, but it might be able to put up up links in other regions through partnerships with the cable companies operative there, she aforementioned.

The Ethernet service is a step up from its decreased-stage business data service. The metro Ethernet table service comes with service-tier guarantees, including at least 99.99 per centum availability, O'Toole aforementioned. The small-occupation service has no so much guarantee.

A customer of the metro Ethernet service could go by signing up for 1M bits per second and upgrade to services as fast as Gigabit Ethernet using the Same onsite equipment. Up to 10M bps, subscribers can upgrade their Robert William Service in increments of 1M bps, and betwixt 10M bps and 100M bps, the help can be boosted by 10M bps at once. Similarly, above 100M bps, customers can increase their speed in increments of 100M bps to 1G bps. Above Gigabit Ethernet, different equipment is needful and users can upgrade away 1G bits per second at a time.

Comcast is pricing the new technology to attract, among others, companies that are using bundled T-1 lines or divide T-3 (45M bps) services to achieve multiple-megabit public presentation. Comcast said that with metro Ethernet, a fellowship could get 10M bps for US$1,200 per month. Doubling that to 20M bps would hike up the monthly rate by just $200.

Comcast's metro Ethernet services pot be set in the lead in four different ways: stop-to-point links from one company site to other, point-to-multipoint networks between a central location and branch sites, multipoint-to-multipoint connections among numerous company facilities, and Ethernet Votive Internet Access Service, with continuous high-speed connectivity between the company's LAN and the Internet.

The services are available now in markets including Stops, Houston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Miami, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., Denver, and Garden State. Comcast said it wish continue to add more markets. Today, Comcast runs metro Ethernet entirely over fiber. The company needs to evaluate its power to reach a given client's location with fibre merely leave work to have permits and build the connections wherever information technology can in those markets, O'Toole aforementioned. Comcast is working to allow Ethernet over existing coax cable in the future, he said.

Stephen Lawson covers mechanized, storage and networking technologies for The IDG News program Service. Follow Stephen on Chitter at @sdlawsonmedia. Stephen's e-mail address is stephen_lawson@idg.com