Forecast: Enterprise Ethernet services, North America

Forecast: Enterprise Ethernet services, North America

Ovum projects that the North American Ethernet service market will grow from $4.3 billion in 2008 to $15.5 billion in 2014, for an average annual growth rate of 24%, primarily driven by substitution from older, slower, and more costly legacy data services. The uptake of enterprise Ethernet services will continue, despite the challenging macroeconomic situation currently facing the overall telecom market. Demand is broadly based across all vertical markets, with the financial sector leading the way. In 2008, the United States led North America in service volume, with 175,000 end points and revenue of $3,284 million, nearly 77 percent of total North American revenues. VPLS shows the highest revenue growth rate of all architectures and E-LAN will become the largest revenue-producing service in 2014.

• Executive Summary
• Uptake of Ethernet services by enterprises increases despite challenging economy
• Forecast summary
• North American enterprise Ethernet service market to surpass $15 billion in 2014
• Ovum view
• Ethernet services will swim up against the downstream telecom current in 2009
• Results for 2008
• Robust Ethernet services growth in '08 despite faltering economy
• Long-range market forecast drivers and barriers
• Technology substitution and ubiquity drive Ethernet services demand
• Ethernet services segmentation forecast
• EVPL will become the largest Ethernet service type by 2011, but E-LAN will account for more revenues by 2014
• Deployments migrating from less than 10Mb to 100Mb, but operators drive greater revenues from 100Mb, 1G
• Architectures capable of delivering Ethernet services are evolving as operators increase capabilities
• Country and regional forecasts
• US enterprise Ethernet services market is much stronger than its northern neighbor
• Spectrum of carrier strategies
• Both full-line and niche/point strategies are working
• Ethernet figures prominently in the service mix of all providers
• Fiber versus copper for access
• Geographic reach is a strategic decision
• Intelligent demarcation is becoming increasingly important
• INOs are more aggressive in rolling out fiber
• Differentiation through value-added service management
• Interconnection agreements are key to extending geographical reach
• Ethernet services are available through multiple technology platforms
• Forecast scenarios and early warning signs
• Depth and length of the macroeconomic correction is key to forecast direction
• List of Tables
  • Table 1: Synopses of North American network operator strategies
• List of Figures
  • Figure 1: North American Ethernet services forecast, 2006-2014
  • Figure 2: North American metro and national Ethernet service volume by service type, 2006-2014
  • Figure 3: North American metro and national enterprise Ethernet services revenues by service type, 2006–2014
  • Figure 4: North American Ethernet service volume forecast by service capacity, 2006–2014
  • Figure 5: North American Ethernet service revenue forecast by service capacity, 2006–2014
  • Figure 6: North American Ethernet service volume forecast by architecture, 2006–2014
  • Figure 7: North American Ethernet service revenue forecast by architecture, 2006–2014
  • Figure 8: North American Ethernet services revenues and volume forecast by country