May 10, 2005 San Jose, CA -- Worldwide Ethernet services revenue topped $2.5 billion in 2004 and is expected to more than double in 2005, then jump another 276% to $22.2 billion between 2005 and 2009, according to a report by Infonetics Research, a market research and consulting firm covering the global data networking and telecommunications industries.
"The Ethernet services market is on fire for several reasons," explains Michael Howard, author of the report and principal analyst at Infonetics Research. "On the end-user side, many companies are hungry for more bandwidth, and many are looking to reduce their WAN costs. Ethernet offers the only way to achieve both, due to its superior bandwidth capacities and cheaper prices per bit. Service providers are also looking for ways to connect their various sites with higher bandwidths at cheaper price per bit, and Gigabit Ethernet point-to-point wholesale services meet this demand."
"On the equipment side, recent carrier-class improvements have been made to Ethernet products that are enabling service providers to offer new Ethernet services, including those with QoS and SLAs - characteristics of the long-standing private line, frame relay, and ATM services they are now beginning to replace," continues Howard.
Among the report's findings:
* Wholesale Ethernet service revenue, much of which comes from point-to-point Gigabit Ethernet links, accounts for about 25% of all Ethernet service revenue.
* Revenue from retail Ethernet services (Internet, Ethernet private line, and transparent LAN services) account for about 75% of all Ethernet service revenue.
* Asia Pacific accounts for over 40% of total Ethernet service revenue; EMEA for over 30%; North America for over 20%.
The report, "Ethernet Services," includes market size totals, annual revenue forecasts through 2009, and analysis of the Ethernet services market for all global regions (worldwide, North America, EMEA, Asia Pacific, CALA), tracking Ethernet service revenue by source (wholesale services to other service providers, retail point-to-point Internet and Ethernet private line services, and emerging retail point-to-multipoint transparent LAN services), as well as by capacity.