Telcos continue to account for the biggest slice of the Ethernet market, with AT&T and Verizon leading in market share for 2013.
According to Vertical Systems Group’s U.S. Carrier Ethernet Leaderboard results for year-end 2013 are, in order, AT&T, Verizon, tw telecom, CenturyLink, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications, XO, Comcast and Level 3.
Cable MSOs gained ground in 2013 though. Time Warner Cable moved up just ahead of Cox to gain the top Cable MSO provider position. Comcast moved up from the Challenge Tier, and was the fastest growing of all ranked companies.
“Cable companies have developed a winning formula for the U.S. business Ethernet market,” said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “They are successfully leveraging their on-net fiber footprints to offer aggressive pricing and rapid service provisioning.”
Other providers selling Ethernet services in the U.S. are segmented into two tiers as measured by port share–Port shares were calculated using the base of enterprise installations of Ethernet services, plus input from Vertical’s independent surveys of Ethernet providers.
The first or Challenge Tier includes providers with between 1 percent and 4 percent share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market. For 2013, the following six companies attained a position in the Challenge tier (in alphabetical order): Bright House Networks, Charter, Cogent, Lightpath (formerly Optimum Lightpath), Windstream and Zayo.
The second or Market Player tier includes all providers with port share below 1%. Companies in the Market Player tier include Alpheus Communications, American Telesis, BT Global Services, Cbeyond, Cincinnati Bell, Consolidated Communications, Earthlink Business, Expedient, FairPoint Communications, FiberLight, Fibertech, Frontier, Hawaiian Telecom, Integra Telecom, Lightower, LS Networks, Lumos Networks, Masergy, Megapath, NTT America, Orange Business, RCN Business, Reliance Globalcom, Sprint, SuddenLink, Tata, TDS Telecom, TelePacific, US Signal, WOW!Business and other companies selling retail Ethernet services in the U.S. market.
The research also uncovered that the fastest growing application for 2013 continues to be Ethernet access to IP/MPLS VPNs, a capability supported by all of the providers. For Gigabit speed Ethernet services, the top applications were connectivity to data centers and cloud services.
A key business concern cited by Ethernet providers is disruptive service pricing in major U.S. metro markets. Competition for new business intensified during the past year as regional Ethernet providers and cable MSOs focused on share gain. Vertical Systems said that the trend is expected to continue throughout 2014.