Corporate network provider Easynet last week launched a new Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) access system aimed at pan-European enterprises. Called EtherStream, the new service will run over copper to support symmetrical uncontended data transfer speeds of up to 24Mbit/s.

Easynet product manager Gemma Tindale said, “We think we’ve identified a gap in the market and we’re planning to roll this out to 200 exchanges by September. We can offer firms a managed service of between 2Mbit/s and 24Mbit/s. Each line gives 3Mbit/s and we can ‘bond’ eight lines together to give 24Mbit/s at distances up to 3km from one of our enabled exchanges.” Easynet said EtherStream would be much cheaper than equivalent BT services

Vim Govender, IT director of the Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG), which has taken up Easynet’s service, said, “This will save costs on our old network, which was made up of fixed leased lines – the only way of getting more [bandwidth] would be to move to BT’s LES10/ LES100 connections.”

Govender said ATG had acquired businesses with a lot of legacy systems running databases and applications independently at each site, and there had been little network resilience, which reduced its growth potential. “EtherStream is coming in at a third of the cost of our old leased lines,” he added.

The service has been trialed in the Netherlands since 2005 and distance from the exchange does affect speeds. Customers 4km from an exchange might see a maximum of 14Mbit/s, said Easynet. “We’re chipping away at the BT LAN Extension Service [LES] monopoly,” added Tindale. BT’s LES is an optical fibre-based system that can run at 155Mbit/s at up to 25km.

Easynet’s system will be delivered through Metro Ethernet vendor Actelis’ hardware, working through a UK systems integrator. The package is backed by service-level agreements (SLAs) including 99.9 percent availability and 24-hour support.

Easynet chief executive David Rowe added, “Where we don’t have our own infrastructure we’ll partner, but it’s best to own it. For us the key would be to control the CPE [customer premises equipment] independently of the incumbent telco.”

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