BT has confirmed that Ethernet will be at the heart of its 21st Century Network (21CN) development. The operator also announced GigeStream, a low cost (point to point) Ethernet private circuit service available nationally at speeds of between 250Mbps and 1Gbs:

Delivering the keynote address to some 300 delegates at "The Future of Carrier-Class Ethernet 2005," an event organised by Lightreading in London, Bross said: “BT is transitioning the foundation of our entire business and we’re putting Ethernet at the heart of our plans.

“We don't believe that Ethernet today is truly carrier class for the 21st Century, but we know it will be soon! We're confident and we’re heavily involved in working with equipment suppliers and standards bodies to ensure it is,” he said.

Bross also dismissed as irrelevant the evolving debate in the industry that Ethernet and IP/MPLS will compete to become the de facto standard for the industry’s future. “Both are essential!” he said .

To reinforce the point, Bross announced three new Ethernet products that BT will launch this summer. One, BT GigeStream, is a low cost, point to point Ethernet private circuit service available nationally at speeds of between 250Mbit/s and 1Git/s. The second is BT EVLAN, a VPLS based metro any to any Ethernet LAN service. Both are available from July this year.

The third is an enhanced version of BT Enterprise Ethernet, a new low bandwidth version of its MegaStream product and that will offer many of the characteristics of a traditional private circuit, but with the benefit of a low cost Ethernet interface. The Enterprise Ethernet product will be available later this summer.

Typically BT is placing Ethernet as a business orientated product, although it's hoped that it could one day be used to help develop Ethernet/Fibre-To-The-Home style services.

Sadly the reality of future low-cost super-broadband (as we call it) ADSL2+, wireless and cable services means that such a future is on hold until its deemed economically viable.