What is a Metro Area Ethernet Connection?

Written by: - Feb 8, 2010

IP Ethernet is a WAN service deployed over a metropolitan area. The service provider extends Ethernet over fiber optics to a customers building, and the customer connects the cable to their LAN switch or router. The service provider can offer the customer either fastethernet or gigabit ethernet speed. The customer can order whatever bandwidth they want to, from 10 Mbps ethernet to 1 gige network speeds. This is a cost saving to the customer as well as increased simplicity without transferring protocols back and forth.

Metro ethernet is flexible because if your business needs more bandwidth than a T1, but not as much as a DS3, metro area ethernet allows you to order in 1 mbps increments. Metro area ethernet is also perfect for providing the bandwidth needed if your business is using voip, ip cameras, large file sharing, or managed services. Ethernet is well known, connecting virtually all networking equipment. This makes the ethernet interface inexpensive. Ethernet also makes it easy to connect several locations through a vpn. The Metro Ethernet Forum defines two types of ethernet connections, point-to-point and multipoint-to-multipoint. The Metro Ethernet Forum describes metro ethernet as having five main attributes: standardized service, quality of service, service mangagement, reliability, and scalability. Some of the top market sectors that can utilized metro ethernet are healthcare, finance, education, government, and media. Principal applications for a metro ethernet connection are site-to-site access, server consolidation, business continuity, disaster recovery, internet access, and converged networking.

Our consultants can answer all of your questions about ip ethernet, 10 mbps ethernet, 100mb ethernet and gige networks.