Sprint to extend Business Ethernet coverage in U.S. and Overseas- 143 markets & 38 countries!
Perhaps many readers were wondering why SPRINT was upgrading their core network backbone. (See Sprint to Scale Core Network to 40G/100G .. on this website). SPRINT is perceived by most folks as a wireless carrier that’s behind the curve in deploying LTE (they incorrectly chose WiMAX as their “4G” technology). That widely believed perception is not accurate as SPRINT has ALWAYS been a well respected wireline carrier. For over 30 years SPRINT has offered wireline public data network services to enterprise and government customers. Those services have included X.25, ISDN, Frame Relay, IP VPN and (recently Business Ethernet).
The 3rd ranked U.S. telco has just announced a major expansion of its Business Ethernet (AKA Carrier Ethernet, EoC, EoF and other names) coverage for enterprise and wholesale customers in the U.S. and abroad. It plans to more than double its U.S. footprint to 143 markets while expanding service to Argentina and Poland overseas. SPRINT now delivers a variety of Business Ethernet services to 38 countries. For more information, please visit: http://www.sprint.com/business/resources/FactSheet_EthernetServices.pdf
A Sprint spokeswoman cited “strong” demand for Business Ethernet, which provides dedicated and aggregated speeds from 2 Megabits up to 1 Gigabit per second. With lots of aggregated 1G Ethernet traffic (as well as other traffic types like IP VPN), one can understand why the telco is upgrading their core network to 40G/100G as described in my previous article.
Introduced five years ago (and based on the IEEE 802.3ah Ethernet First Mile standard of 2003), Carrier Ethernet access is geared for businesses and Sprint’s wholesale partners. Outside the U.S., Sprint currently offers Ethernet in 36 countries including Brazil, Canada, China, India and many European countries. Businesses can now choose from 18 aggregated and 16 dedicated Ethernet speeds.
“Aggregated Ethernet access can provide a cost-effective alternative to traditional TDM access, while Dedicated Ethernet access expands easily to meet specific customer bandwidth needs, offering fixed-rate and fractional (burstable) billing,” Sprint noted in a press release (see url below).
Stephanie Greenwood, a spokeswoman for Sprint, said the company doesn’t reveal the number of Ethernet customers or total sales tied to such services. However, she noted customer demand has been robust. “We knew customer demand would be strong and we had expectations, which have been met,” she said. For more information, please see the press release:
And an earlier article detailing Sprint’s Business Ethernet roll-outs several months ago: