Tata Comm rolls-out NextGen Ethernet n/w in India

BANGALORE, INDIA: Tata Communications announced the launch of 'Ethernet only', Provider Backbone Bridging (PBB) standard backed, Next Generation Ethernet (NGE) network in India.

In a press conference held here on Thursday, John Hoffman, head, Ethernet Product Management, Tata Communications said that the mobile service operator has integrated its existing India infrastructure into the new NGE network architecture, across 11 Indian cities — namely New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Gurgaon, Pune, Hyderabad, Kochi, Noida, Ahmedabad and Kolkata.

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With large scale data centre build outs in India during the past few years, Hoffman sees a huge uptake for bandwidth intensive applications and services such as cloud, business videos, telepresence, which in turn will put huge pressure on networks and so India needs better and more extensive Ethernet services.

"India moved very early to Ethernet, however, did not keep up the momentum in terms of advancement. NGE can support greater numbers of customers and higher bandwidth on the backbone. Moreover, scalability along with lower port costs and the ability of Ethernet to ride on legacy based WAN services is driving the demand for Ethernet in India, says the company,” Hoffman added.

The company claims that unlike its competing operators who build converged MPLS and VPLS-based networks to carry a mixture of private, public IP traffic and Ethernet services, Tata Communications’ new Ethernet network core carries only Ethernet traffic.

Tata Communications' Ethernet platform, which is Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) 9 and MEF 14 certified, will also allow customers to select specific routes through the provider's network (for diversity, latency or cost reasons). Moreover, it will also offer protection against denial of service attack (DDoS), ensure data is viewed only by the intended audience and comes with improved SLAs that includes latency, says the company.

"Tata Comm will offer 'high performance with low jitter and packet loss' service at 15 milli second resiliency on its network, which will be capable of 1mbps to 10 gigabit per second data transfer capacity," Hoffman added.

Ravi Pandey, industry analyst, ICT Practice, South Asia & Middle East Region, Frost & Sullivan, said that unlike ATM, IP, 3G,  Web, 4G, or LTE, Ethernet will not remain a mere hype.

"Ethernet is one of fastest growing segments for the data services market and for FY 10-11. The contribution of Ethernet services accounts for three per cent and stands at Rs 202 crore. The Ethernet market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 32 per cent and touch the 800 crore mark by 2016," Pandey noted.

A study by the analyst firm finds that Ethernet is mainly adopted by large enterprises, however, of late it has seen major traction in the SMB segment as well. The primary growth drivers for the Ethernet market in India are IP migration, evolution of borderless enterprises, compliances/regulations, business continuity and disaster recovery centres as well as the convergence of business, residential and wireless networks.

The analyst also added that Ethernet might eat into SDH, SONET, or TDM's space, however he does not see Ethernet replacing them at least for another decade.

Pandey reiterated, "They will continue to remain, as no technology goes away from ICT world, however their usage will diminish going forward and Ethernet will be widely used then because of its cost effectiveness and other advantages."

Tata Communications will also be launching an enhanced multipoint service, burstability with usage-based billing together with a dedicated Ethernet service that can scale from 1,000 — 10,000 Meg in 500 Meg increments.