By Kimberly Caisse
Network World, 12/24/01
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The availability of the necessary fiber for Optical Ethernet in metropolitan office buildings is a drawback of the service, compared with frame relay and ATM, says Daryl Schoolar, senior analyst at Cahners In-Stat. Cahners In-Stat estimates that only 40,000 to 50,000 buildings in the U.S. currently can be targeted for Ethernet metropolitan-area network services. That number is not expected to grow significantly during the next several years. "The cost of building fiber networks is so large," Schoolar says.

Once an Ethernet service provider brings fiber to an office building, it can expect only about 1% of the tenants to sign up for Ethernet transport services and 2% to buy Ethernet Internet access during the first year of availability, according to a Cahners In-Stat report.

Most tenants have two- or three-year contracts with other service providers, Schoolar says, and they need time for Ethernet service providers to convince them to adopt the new metropolitan-area network technology. By the fifth year, that service provider can expect about 24% of the tenants to use its transport service and 40% to use its Internet access service.