Covad broadens Ethernet reach through CENX partnership

Covad Wholesale has been aggressively pushing its Ethernet services agenda, but their customers have had to go through a lengthy process to strike wholesale Ethernet deals.

To take guesswork out of wholesale Ethernet purchase process, Covad has struck a partnership with Carrier Ethernet Exchange provider CENX. By establishing an initial interconnection at CENX's Los Angeles exchange, wholesale carrier customers will be able to gain access to Covad's Ethernet over Copper (EoC) service suite with speeds that range from 3 Mbps to 20 Mbps. Over time, Covad and CENX will light up more U.S. exchange locations to make its footprint available to more carriers.

With presence in 4,000 COs, Covad has built out a sizeable Ethernet footprint that it says is designed to help carrier customers "simplify the 'off-net' buying process." In Southern California alone, Covad's EoC service is available in over 100 central offices.

"It made sense to team with CENX because as we deal with all of these various carriers, the engagement process is pretty lengthy," said Jeff Brown, vice president of Covad Carrier Services in an interview with FierceTelecom. "This is because one carrier's Ethernet service is slightly different than someone else's. I think the business proposition at CENX is it brings partners together quicker to market and smoothing out the differences between the offerings so you get a seamless Ethernet service at the end."

In addition to selling its wares to U.S.-based carriers that need to expand their respective Ethernet service footprints, Covad believes the CENX arrangement will enable to sell to international service providers. "We know that there a lot of foreign carriers that have multinational customers in the U.S. and these commercial buildings need cost-effective broadband access," Brown said. "There's an interest in Covad Ethernet services and CENX can pave the way to make it easier to do business with each other."

Covad's partnership with CENX may be new, but making its EoC services and subsequent CENX partnership addresses the ongoing fiber availability issue. According to Vertical Systems Group, fiber is only currently available in 22.9 percent of U.S. buildings.  

For more:
- see the release here

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