2/22/2005 -- After eight years on the market, it looks as if Gigabit Ethernet finally has decisive momentum on its side. In the fourth quarter of last year, says market research specialist Dell’Oro Group, companies deployed more Gigabit Ethernet port capacity than Fast Ethernet port capacity to users’ desktops.

“Attractive price points are making the decision to upgrade to modular Gigabit a relatively easy one for many enterprises, as the total per-port average selling price of modular Gigabit is currently only twice that of modular Fast Ethernet,” said Seamus Crehan, director of Ethernet switch research at Dell’Oro Group, in a statement. “We believe much of the growth in this segment is driven by larger enterprises deploying modular Gigabit-over-Copper in their wiring closets, which in turn is driving demand for 10 Gigabit Ethernet to aggregate this traffic.”

In Q4 of 2004, for example, Gigabit Ethernet modular switch ports narrowly outsold 100-base switch ports, 3.4 million to 3.1 million. At this point, Gigabit Ethernet ports cost about twice as much ($280) as Fast Ethernet ($140) on a per-port basis, says Dell’Oro — and a surprising number of desktop and notebook systems ship with Gigabit capacity integrated at the mainboard level.

This isn’t to say that organizations have exhausted the capacity of their existing 100-base networks, of course: In most cases, Dell’Oro officials say, companies are adding Gigabit Ethernet capacity to better equip themselves for the future and extend the usable lifespans of their switch investments.

Also adding to Gigabit Ethernet’s momentum, Dell’Oro officials say, is blistering uptake of next-gen routers, which grew by 77 percent (to $384 million) from the year-ago period. And if Gigabit Ethernet’s own history is any indication, 10 Gigabit Ethernet could eventually become a volume play: Dell’Oro found that shipments of modular 10 Gigabit Ethernet ports grew by 71.5 percent in Q4 of 2004 — the second successive quarter of such aggressive growth.

Cisco Systems Inc. was the number one player in the modular Gigabit Ethernet switch market, followed by Hewlett-Packard Co., Nortel Networks and Enterasys. In the overall enterprise switch market, Cisco was also number one, controlling more than 71 percent of the market in Q4. Cisco’s closest rival was Nortel, which notched only a 5 percent share.

In the high-end router space, Cisco is still the front-runner, with 55 percent of overall share in Q4, but is trailed more narrowly by competitive comer Juniper Networks, which garnered almost 40 percent of high-end router revenues during the same period. -Stephen Swoyer