According to Vertical Systems Group, worldwide installations of Carrier Ethernet services will expand to more than 3 million ports by 2018, more than 1 million of them in the United States. Projected installations include retail Ethernet services at speeds ranging from sub-10 Mbps to more than 10 Gbps.

Other findings indicate:

• The projected five-year cumulative revenue opportunity for retail Carrier Ethernet service providers exceeds $200 billion worldwide.
• Carrier Ethernet is growing at double-digit rates in every region of the world. Asia/Pacific is the largest market based on revenue, followed by the United States and Europe.
• By 2018, Ethernet is expected to contribute more than 75% of worldwide business data bandwidth.