With 2006 drawing to a close mid-band Ethernet is now beginning to hit its commercial stride. Mehmet Balos, president of Americas and chief marketing officer of Actelis Neworks, reckons that the new IEEE 802.3ah technology is presently being tested by incumbents '... in every country in the world.' And it's not just incumbents that are getting interested. As well as BellSouth, service providers that are commercialising or trialling the new technology, or that are apparently contemplating purchasing the technology from the like of Actelis and rival Hatteras, are understood to include AT&T, BT, COLT, Easynet, Finnish data group Finnet, PowerTel in Australia, T-Com in Hungary, Norway's Telenor, and CenturyTel, TDS Telecom and XO Communications in the USA. One estimate from the Vertical Systems Group analysis house is that, over the next five years, the addressable mid-band Ethernet market in Europe is 1.5 million lines and in the USA is 1 million lines. This could represent, respectively, service revenues of over US$7 billion and over US$8 billion.

Complete article on America's Network