Sean Buckley: Hello and welcome to Telecommunications' PodProfile series. Today I am talking to Rosemary Cochran, Principal and Co-Founder of Vertical Systems Group, who is here to talk to us about retail Ethernet market trends. Rosemary, thanks for joining us today.

Rosemary Cochran: Thank you Sean.

RC: Well Sean, the mid-2007 port-share results reflect the volatility of the U.S. retail business Ethernet services market during the first half of the year. And there were some interesting changes in the lineup as compared to the end of last year. Top Three market leaders are unchanged. We've got two incumbents, AT&T and Verizon, plus the competitive provider, Time Warner Telecom.

AT&T retains number one position with a 19.5 percent port share. That figure includes all the retail ports for AT&T as well as BellSouth, which was acquired by AT&T at the end of '06.

Second is Verizon Business, which has a 15.8 percent share, and then Time Warner Telecom, which continues to hold third position with a mid-year share of 13.7 percent.

Then in the next level of providers there were some shake-ups. Cox Business moved up from an "other" provider to the number four spot, and that's a significant development in the Ethernet market because Cox is the first cable MSO to break into the top tier. So in fifth position then is Cogent, which moved up ahead of Qwest. That makes Qwest number six followed by Yipes at seven.

That rounds out the leading providers from mid-2007. And dropping off the list is Level Three, which is grouped in the "other provider” segment, and in that "other provider” segment there

are more than 40 other Ethernet providers that have retail ports installed, and these other providers combine to account for slightly more than a quarter of all Ethernet port installations. So the bottom line is that we're likely to see more volatility in the second half of the year.

Complete interview available here.