* Mailbag: Metro Ethernet services: Panacea or pain?
A couple of weeks ago, we proposed that we’re seeing metro Ethernet services beginning to have a major impact on making high-speed access both available and affordable, thereby eliminating the bandwidth bottleneck between the semi-infinite bandwidth in the LAN and the WAN.
At that time, we asked for feedback on your experiences with these services, and we received some detailed information from Ginny Rapp, vice president of City National Bank of Florida. She wrote: “I’m the IT manager for a commercial bank headquartered in Miami. We have 19 branches located in three counties in South Florida. Our previous network consisted of frame relay T-1s to all of our branches with 128K CIR, with two full T-1s at headquarters. This WAN had been in place for quite some time, since sometime in 1996.
“Last year we began to consider metro Ethernet to replace our frame relay network. We were also planning on implementing a new VoIP system to replace our legacy PBXs. When we looked at the pricing for the bandwidth, and almost all of our sites qualified, it was a no-brainer. However, the implementation has not been an easy process. The construction and facility requirements to support the install of the fiber have been extremely demanding. We estimate that [installation] cost us an average of $3,000 a site. Some were much less, some were much higher. We started the project in January and we still are not done, although I estimate we will be complete by the end of the year.
“We also have discovered two sites that qualified for metro Ethernet, but due to crushed conduit and other major issues, will not be implemented because of the up-front construction costs and time involved to implement at these sites.
“I also understand that now our service provider has a copper-based metro Ethernet solution, which may alleviate many of these headaches. Unfortunately, the copper-based metro Ethernet also has some strict requirements, such as being within a mile of the CO in order to qualify.
“So far we have about 13 sites up and running and I’m very satisfied with the results. Most have only been up a few months, but we haven’t experienced any problems yet. We are running voice and data over the WAN and are planning on adding videoconferencing in the next few months. In summary, we went from 128K CIR at our branches to 10-meg circuits for approximately the same monthly cost we were spending for frame. The main drawbacks for us were the installation requirements, costs and time involved to get metro Ethernet up and running. But now that we are through the worst of that, I definitely think it’s the way to go.”
Thanks so much to Rapp for sharing these experiences. We’d like to add two notes. First, we’ll be discussing the copper-based – also known as “mid-band” Ethernet – in the near future. Also, we’re in the midst of a survey collecting your thoughts on metro Ethernet. To participate, please access it here, and we’ll share the results in a Webtorials State-of-the-Market report.
