Infonetics Research released a report this week that looks at how rapidly 10 Gigabit Ethernet is growing and attempts to explain why.

In 2006, the number of ports shipped on enterprise and service provider equipment was about 300,000. But Infonetics expects to see that number swell to 3 million by 2010.

10 Gigabit ports are most commonly found on Ethernet switches these days; however, Infonetics claims that 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports will start to show up on IP edge routers and optical equipment in coming years, and that will be a big factor in its growth.

The report covers enterprise Ethernet switches, routers, and application switches, as well as service provider routers, carrier Ethernet switches and optical gear.

Infonetics points to bandwidth-hungry applications as a driver for 10G in the enterprise, but there are few apps that really need 10 Gigabit. Perhaps more pressing are the backup and archiving applications Infonetics cites. If you are doing backups over the network, it helps to have as much headroom as you can get, to help the backups move quicker in a short burst.

And why haven't we seen 10G take off at really high levels in the enterprise yet? Infonetics says some buyers have been holding out for lower-priced copper alternatives.

The service providers are a different animal. They are coping with ever-increasing needs for capacity as Internet traffic continues to grow, especially as video is used by more people online. Ethernet, even the 10 Gigabit kind, brings its usual low costs to the party.

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Jeff Caruso is site editor at Network World.