MIAMI — “After the classical network and the Internet, we need a third network that combines the best of both PSTN and the Internet,” said Nan Chen, the president of Metro Ethernet Forum, during the opening keynote address at the NetEvents Americas Press & Summit held in Miami. The MEF launched the so-called CE 2.0 last February, the next generation of carrier Ethernet, which is characterized by standardized features such as multiple classes of service (Multi-CoS), interconnect and manageability, enabling the global delivery of differentiated applications over managed and interconnected networks.
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“MEF believes it has taken the first steps to enable this new network. The Internet is a great tool, but you know it can fail when you need it, while we actually standardize multiple types of service for each of the classes,” said Chen. “And based on the applications, we have recommendations in terms of delay, variation, packet loss and availability. How powerful is that? Everybody could be implementing exactly the same thing.”
According to MEF, CE 2.0 is generationally advanced compared to the standardized Ethernet services delivered over a single provider’s network defined now as Carrier Ethernet 1.0 (CE 1.0). Indeed, the MEF believes CE 2.0 will revolutionize the efficiency and usability of Ethernet service delivery.
“The point is how to monetize investments on the network, and the key is how to manage the network,” said Telco Systems’ Greg Gum, during a debate session about the Ethernet’s role in boosting operators’ profit.
Frost & Sullivan estimates that service providers’ Ethernet revenue will jump from 16.3% of total revenues in 2011 to 31.1% by 2015. The institution forecasts that MPLS connections will grow from 36% in 2011 to 45.4%. “We see a migration to MPLS and Ethernet. IT infrastructure is changing,” said Roopashree Honnachari, program manager at Frost & Sullivan.
Kevin Vachon, MEF’s COO, estimated that worldwide, Ethernet services will reach U.S.$45 billion in revenue by 2015. “It was recently launched. We have a lot of education to do,” he said.
Part of CE 2.0’s role—and the characteristic that could boost its implementation—involves facilitating cloud adoption because CE 2.0 provides the support cloud models need, making the Internet more dynamic. Among CE 2.0’s target segments are off-the-shelf businesses, ultra-bandwidth services and value-added services.
“Cloud obviously is a hot topic here; well, Ethernet can be a cloud carrier, which MEF is driving pretty hard,” said Chen.
NetEvents provided travel costs to this event.
