The highly turbulent Data and Telecom business has given rise to significant opportunity for anyone who can considerably extend the life of the plethora of networks and technologies in the currently installed infrastructure. As chaotic as the market has become, the need to move data has not subsided. In fact, we know that it continues to grow, and that in this environment Service Providers will design in and buy known and proven functionality over new features and protocols in the relentless drive toward higher bandwidth and lower costs.
The global climate is dominated by Incumbant Local Exchange Carriers (ILECs). These companies are being pressed to offer faster and cheaper data services, over their currently installed First/Last Mile Circuit Centric infrastructure, the nature of which is diverse and varied. The current infrastructure is not consistent anywhere in the world, leading to the emergence of companies called Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs), most of which have gone out of business.
The vast majority of data starts and ends on LANs as Ethernet packets, with most packets carrying IP data in some form. In the future, data has to be moved in its native form, as Ethernet packets. Currently external data communications traffic has to go through circuit-based systems in almost all cases. To do this it has to be turned into a format that can travel over and through the circuit-based infrastructure, and then be "reassembled" into packets that work within the currently installed global Ethernet Networks. This is a very expensive and inefficient process.
The only possible technology to deliver efficient data services over the First / Last Mile infrastructure is Ethernet; within three years Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) will own this space. It will come in various flavours: 10 Mb, 100Mb, 1Gb, and 10Gb. But at the end of the day, it's going to be Ethernet. Further, the use of Ethernet means it will be simple to use, have ubiquitous user interfaces, and present little possibility for premium rate charging over the long term.
