Stepping back into the Ethernet

Getting the high-speed connectivity your business needs can be a balancing act between different technologies and topologies. Most companies today have a mixture of on-premises and cloud-based solutions that make up their IT infrastructure, along with multiple locations, and possibly multiple owned-data centres. Working out the best way to meet your connectivity needs across such an infrastructure is difficult.

For a long-time, sending traffic across the public Internet has been growing in popularity. Internet connectivity has many advantages but is not the best choice for every use case. The prevalence of public clouds too has provided great opportunities for some customers to move their owned co-location resources into these new environments. Technologies such as SD-WAN, have made it possible to dynamically and rapidly tweak networks in order to achieve the best performance for a particular use case or application across those public networks.

These technologies all work very well, but it might surprise you to hear that, as WAN technologies go, Ethernet is enjoying a renaissance. It is, after all, the most trusted and proven LAN technology that has continuously re-invented itself over decades, providing a perfect combination of high-speed connectivity and simplicity for WAN use-cases, such as business continuity, sensitive data transfers, or those where consistent control over performance is essential.

At a time when businesses are recovering from the challenges of the last 18 months, many IT departments are taking the opportunity to review how complex their network topologies have become. Tough and rapid decisions had to be made to support remote workers and customers during the pandemic that impacted the network. Additionally, the arrival of hybrid working and the emergence of new business strategies and models that are being developed following recent experiences, will all need flexibility and agility to succeed.

There is also a desire for greater control and transparency over traffic, but not at the expense of simplicity. The public Internet can be one of those areas where both of these can be compromised as an organization’s data must compete with every other piece of traffic. Whilst resilience is built into the Internet, the network failures and re-routing of traffic can have a significant impact on performance – something which cannot be controlled and maybe completely unpalatable for business critical or sensitive data.

Ethernet back in the limelight

Ethernet is stepping up to the plate to offer a new way for organizations to overcome these problems whilst retaining both simplicity and high-speed connectivity. The Telia Carrier Ethernet service has been developed to give customers access to our #1 AS1299 Global Fiber Backbone, while still retaining their own private connection. Some of the key benefits of Ethernet by Telia Carrier include:

• Private connection – Our Ethernet service offers private connection over high capacity MPLS backbone. It is logically separated and prioritised over our IP traffic but runs on the same extensive global backbone benefiting from its capacity and investment. We also offer 3 levels of Ethernet classes of service (CoS) for further prioritisation, all MEF aligned. This approach gives all the performance of the network, such as low latency, along with a high level of security for network traffic.
• Resilient by nature – Our Ethernet traffic is protected by MPLS technology. The main benefit of MPLS network design is reliability and our Ethernet services benefit from the network’s reliability and in-built resilience which ensures high availability with rapid rerouting around any network incidents or maintenance, without compromising traffic.
• Design flexibility and high bandwidth – Available with both EVPL and ELAN Ethernet topologies, our Ethernet service can guarantee bandwidths from 10Mbps up to 10Gbps and up to 100GE handover. Customers have complete flexibility over connections which can be designated as Point to Point, Hub and Spoke or Any to Any (VPLS).
• Optimise existing interconnection points – Imagine being able to run multiple Telia Carrier services and compliance standards on a single Ethernet port! That is exactly what companies can do with our Multiple Services on One Port (MSOP) technology. IP, ELAN, EVPL and even our Cloud Connect service can operate together across a single port, greatly simplifying network infrastructure.

Ethernet WAN done easy

Whatever your connection needs, Ethernet by Telia Carrier opens up new opportunities to simplify your network, whilst giving you the flexibility to build your global network the way you need it to be now – and create a foundation that is easy to scale to meet your future connectivity needs.

You can learn more by reading our Telia Carrier Ethernet service page, and by watching this short FAQ video about our Ethernet service.

Anna Maslewska, Global Product Manager – Ethernet