5/1/2006 -- Cisco Systems Inc. must be licking its lips. According to market watcher Infonetics Research, the global market for Ethernet services revenue is big -- and poised to grow ever bigger. Worldwide Ethernet services revenue more than doubled last year, growing to $5.9 billion. That's just the beginning, of course. Over the next four years, Infonetics projects, the global market for Ethernet services will grow by almost 300 percent, eventually reaching $22.5 billion.

Mid-band Ethernet services will be by far the most active segment. This includes the 1-10M and >10-50M speed bands -- the sweet spot of the market -- and should grow to $8 billion by 2009, at which point it'll account for more than one-third of all Ethernet services revenue. That's better than 400 percent growth, Infonetics researchers say.

"Since Ethernet offers more bandwidth without increasing WAN costs, it's growing in popularity, especially among small and medium businesses, and among remote and branch offices of large businesses -- the very customers service providers are targeting for new revenue," said Infonetics principal analyst Michael Howard, in a statement.

Why is Ethernet such a bankable revenue generator? In large part, Howard says, because of its familiarity or ubiquity. "Eighty-five percent of North America's buildings are copper-fed. That's a big market. And now that copper bonding products finally meet the requirements of major providers, offering mid-band Ethernet services to small and medium businesses is as easy as adding a pair of copper bond switches," he said, citing a slew of upcoming carrier roll-outs. "BellSouth is offering mid-band Ethernet service as part of field trials now, and other service providers are gearing up for mid-band Ethernet, too, including XO, TDS, MTS-Allstream, CenturyTel, Finnet and Telenor. 2006 will be the year the real ramp in mid-band Ethernet sales begins."

Elsewhere, Infonetics says, wholesale Ethernet service revenues today account for about one-quarter of global revenues, but will grow more slowly through 2009. Much of this revenue comes from point-to-point Gigabit Ethernet links, the researcher said. Revenue from retail Ethernet services such as Internet/WAN access, Ethernet private line and transparent LAN services today accounts for 75 percent of all Ethernet service revenue. Surprisingly, Asia-Pacific is the biggest overall Ethernet services market, with 40 percent of all revenues, followed by Europe, the Middle East and Africa (with 30 percent), and North America, with just 20 percent of global revenues. -Stephen Swoyer