Verizon Expands Metro Ethernet Service in Europe

Verizon Communications extended the reach of its Ethernet Access service on Thursday, allowing businesses to link office LANs in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Poland and Spain into their Private IP networks.

The service opened in 10 other European countries earlier this year, and is also available in the United States and seven countries in Asia.

Using Ethernet Access, customers can connect sites to Verizon’s Private IP backbone network at speeds from 2Mbps to 100Mbps, said Peter Konings, product director for international advanced data services at Verizon Business. The company plans to provide access at gigabit Ethernet speed sometime in 2007.

Private IP is an any-to-any Layer 3 service, which spares customers the trouble of configuring routes between their offices, he said. Customers can allocate applications or traffic types to one of five classes of service managed by the company’s multiprotocol label switching network, he said.

The cost of the service depends on the distance from Verizon’s nearest switch—in Spain, there are switches in Barcelona and Madrid—and whether Verizon can connect the customer directly using its own fiber network, or must turn to a third party. “The further they are from those switches, the less competitive we become,” Konings said.

Ethernet Access is one of several ways customers can connect sites to Verizon’s private IP backbone in order to link them together over a VPN. Other access options include leased lines, DSL and satellite.

-Peter Sayer, IDG News Service (Paris Bureau)

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