VSG: Business Ethernet expands 43% in 2008

FEBRUARY 26, 2009 -- In the midst of a crippling economic downturn in many sectors, U.S. demand for business Ethernet service ports expanded at a rate of 43% during 2008. Spurred by lower bandwidth costs and higher service availability, enterprises of all sizes purchased carrier-based Ethernet to support their business networking applications, according to Vertical Systems Group's year-end market analysis (search Lightwave for Vertical Systems Group).

"Despite a near paralysis of new telecom spending at the end of the year, there were tens of thousands of new business Ethernet service installs during 2008," said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. "Deployments were most active in the third quarter before many enterprises implemented spending freezes or staff reductions. Customer installations in the fourth quarter consisted primarily of follow-through on in-process network conversions."

Based on retail customer port installations, AT&T maintained its U.S. market leadership in 2008, although considerable momentum by Verizon narrowed the gap (see figure). Attaining a position on Vertical Systems Group's 2008 Business Ethernet Leaderboard with 5% or more of the market are eight service providers in the following order by share: AT&T, Verizon, tw Telecom, Cox, Qwest, Cogent, Time Warner Cable, and Level 3.

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