4/23/2007 -- If you think metro Ethernet is yesterday's news, think again: Between last year and 2010, buyers will pony up a cumulative total of nearly $64 billion on metro Ethernet solutions.

The metro surge started last year, when revenues jumped by 83 percent, nearly reaching $9.2 billion.

If Infonetics' numbers are right -- and company officials like to think that they are -- metro Ethernet revenues will jump to $16 billion by 2010, an increase of nearly 75 percent.

Last year, revenues surged in every metro Ethernet equipment category (with the exception of enterprise-class Ethernet switches and routers), with carrier Ethernet switches and routers, Ethernet over DSL and cable equipment, EPON equipment, and Ethernet access devices (EADs) ringing up triple-digit growth rates.

The upshot, Infonetics researchers say, is that Ethernet Everywhere dominance -- which seems to have been a foregone conclusion-in-the-marking for years now -- may actually be coming to pass.

"Each year, Ethernet gets a little closer to becoming the dominant mode of transmitting data traffic around the world, with tens of millions of 1G and 10G Ethernet ports already in metro networks, and many more projected," said Infonetics co-founder and principal analyst Michael Howard in a statement.

With indications from service providers and other high-volume buyers trending strongly in favor of metro Ethernet, this isn't likely to change, Howard said.

"Service providers plan to gradually replace and displace their SONET/SDH equipment, and efforts are underway to bring SONET/SDH connection oriented functionality to Ethernet in 2007–2010," he indicated. "With these new transport functions, Ethernet will have deterministic connection tunnels, complete with the QoS, resiliency and reliability necessary to be used along with and instead of SONET/SDH."

Elsewhere, Infonetics found, the EAD segment is still be coming into its own, and -- after doubling in size last year -- is expected to quadruple by 2010. Most EADs are deployed in support of customer-to-carrier connections, Infonetics found, although some are being used in carrier-to-carrier scenarios. This should change between now and 2010, with the use of EADs in mobile backhaul scenarios expected to grow rapidly over that period.

North America was second overall in terms of demand for metro Ethernet equipment, accounting for 32 percent of all revenues. Asia-Pacific was No. 1; the EU, the Middle East and Africa were No. 3.

Not surprisingly, Infonetics found, most metro Ethernet shipments are equipped with VDSL/G.SHDSL copper ports. --Stephen Swoyer