PAETEC to offer 100 Mbps Ethernet over Copper service

PAETEC (Nasdaq: PAET) is playing into the business user's need for increased data bandwidth with its new 100 Mbps Ethernet over Copper (EoC) service.

Leveraging Overture Networks' Ethernet over Copper gear it purchased from the former Hatteras Networks, the new service will leverage PAETEC's existing copper facilities and bonding up to 15 Mbps per copper pair to deliver the 100 Mbps speeds to end-customers.

Through its acquisition of the former Cavalier Telephone and its wholesale subsidiary Intellifiber, PAETEC has created a sizeable EoC footprint. Currently, the CLEC has over 370 COs connected to its network that are EoC capable with plans to add an additional 160 new COs by end of 2011.

Like DSL, EoC is still beholden to the physical limitations that no carrier can easily overcome, but Clint Heiden, President of president of national accounts and fiber services, PAETEC, said service providers can overcome some of those issues with careful planning.

"Qualification of the circuits is the critical piece," he said. "If you have done that and you have done it well and you have a living breathing database as a service provider like PAETEC you can become accurate about what locations are eligible for the service."

Retail customers are only one leg of PAETEC's EoC service stool, however.

The service will also be available on a wholesale to other carriers on a wholesale basis through either one or multiple External Network-to-Network Internetworking (E-NNI) arrangements. By establishing an E-NNI arrangement with PAETEC, a service provider would be able to get Ethernet access into PAETEC's 200,000 building footprint.

For more:
- see the release

Special Report: Competitive carriers hone their Ethernet over Copper skills

Related articles:
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PAETEC names Clint Heiden SVP and President of National Accounts and Fiber Services
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