Colt maintains global Ethernet lead as cloud and optical wavelength services pose new competitive market threats

The European provider retains the top ranking on Vertical Systems Mid-Year 2025 Global Ethernet LEADERBOARD.
Sept. 11, 2025
3 min read

Key Highlights

  • Colt remains a top player, with a vast network infrastructure and recent expansion into major financial markets like NYSE and NASDAQ.
  • The global Ethernet leaderboard has seen shifts, with NTT, GTT, and Vodafone climbing into the top ranks, reflecting active network build-outs in key regions.
  • Emerging competition from Cloud, NaaS, and SD-WAN services is impacting traditional Ethernet growth, as enterprises adopt more flexible, internet-based connectivity options.
  • Regional market forecasts vary, with the U.S. leading in revenue and growth, while Europe faces revenue erosion by 2027, and RoW shows promising growth prospects.
  • Providers are focusing on filling fiber gaps and deploying higher-speed Ethernet services to support increasing demand and higher bandwidth requirements worldwide.
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Colt continues to hang onto its dominant position in the global Ethernet market, as seen on Vertical Systems Mid-Year 2025 Global Ethernet LEADERBOARD, signaling the service provider’s aggressive market build-out strategy. 

Its IQ Network is distributed to more than 32,000 on-net buildings, 1,100 data centers, and hundreds of data network connection points around the globe.

However, Colt has not been resting on its laurels. The service provider continues to expand its network to reach more markets. In March, Colt expanded its capital markets data solutions into two of the largest stock exchanges--the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), along with the Options Price Reporting Authority (OPRA).

Colt is joined by eight other global Ethernet players, including Orange Business (France), Verizon (U.S.), AT&T (U.S.), NTT (Japan), BT Global (U.K.), GTT (U.S.), Vodafone (U.K.), and Cirion (Argentina).

To obtain a multinational Ethernet network market ranking, a provider must hold a 4% or higher share of billable retail ports at sites outside of their respective home countries.

www.verticalsystems.com
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Top player shifts

Outside of the top four providers, there were shifts within the remainder of the top rankings in the Global Ethernet LEADERBOARD.

NTT advanced to the #5 position, surpassing BT Global, which dropped to 6.

To support higher-speed Ethernet service deployments worldwide, Carrier Ethernet providers are actively filling fiber gaps in key country markets.

Other notable shifts were seen by GTT and Vodafone. These providers advanced from VSG’s Challenge Tier to the Global Ethernet LEADERBOARD for the first time, respectively attaining the #7 and #8 positions.

GTT, in May, announced that it expanded its EnvisionCORE global Tier 1 IP backbone in major Latin America and Asia Pacific locations. Specifically, GTT EnvisionCORE extended its network reach in Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand.

Finally, Cirion falls to the #9 and final position on the mid-2025 Global Ethernet LEADERBOARD.

Cloud and NaaS challenge Ethernet

While the top Ethernet providers are enhancing their reach and share, the overall Ethernet market faces a new set of competition.

VSG noted that challenges are emerging across the Global Ethernet market as enterprise customers move from their legacy networks to alternatives, including Cloud and Internet-based services, SD-WAN/SSE/SASE, wavelengths, and other evolving offerings.

NaaS (Network as a Service) continues to gain momentum. The service type, which combines on-demand connectivity, application assurance, cybersecurity, and multi-cloud networking within a standards-based automated ecosystem. 

“Market demand for Global Ethernet ports has slowed during the past year as enterprises worldwide transition to more ubiquitous Internet-based connectivity alternatives,” said Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group.

www.verticalsystems.com
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Regional differences

Within the four regional markets that VSG tracks–U.S., Asia/Pacific, Europe and RoW–worldwide Ethernet revenue will reach over $57 billion by 2029.

Rosemary Cochran, principal at Vertical Systems Group, wrote in a recent blog post that the “worldwide Ethernet outlook to 2029 is impacted by several dynamics, including market maturity, the lingering impact of the global pandemic, price compression, and region-specific factors.”

She added that “regional forecasts for this time period vary considerably.”

Based on Ethernet revenue, the U.S. is the largest regional market, with the highest positive CAGR between 2024 and 2029. Right behind the U.S. is Asia/Pacific, which has a flattening revenue outlook for this projection period. 

Europe, the third-largest regional market, has projected revenue erosion by 2027. VSG noted that Europe is the only region with a negative CAGR between 2024 and 2029. The RoW (Rest of World) region, the smallest market based on revenue, has a healthy growth outlook as well as the second-highest revenue CAGR.

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Mplify advances business services automation
Automation has become a key element of advancing Ethernet. Mplify is actively advancing the global use of LSO APIs to facilitate and expand the automation of business functions between Carrier Ethernet providers. Its LSO (Lifecycle Service Orchestration) APIs are open-standard APIs to automate network-based services and business transactions across multiple providers, based on standards originally from the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) and now managed by Mplify. Mplify's LSO APIs support functions like quoting, ordering, and billing, as well as operational tasks, to enable a global Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) environment. The organization offers an LSO API Certification Program and registry to validate API conformance and promote interoperability among vendors and service providers. 

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Sean Buckley

Sean is responsible for establishing and executing the editorial strategy of Lightwave across its website, email newsletters, events, and other information products.

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