May 29,2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact:

Karen Wucher
Nemertes Research Inc.
Phone: 972-335-7028
Cell: 972-872-0828
Karen.Wucher@nemertes.com

Ethernet WANs Poised for Rapid Growth
But MPLS is Still King

NEW YORK, NY – May 29, 2008 – A growing number of businesses are adopting Ethernet services, according to Nemertes’ Building a Successful WAN research report. Ethernet adoption grew from 46% in 2004 to 53% in 2008, and 85% of those companies plan to deploy more Ethernet services in the future. Another 14% of companies are planning their first Ethernet deployments.

Cost, flexibility, and bandwidth are driving the demand. “Ethernet services are a fraction of the cost of other alternatives,” said Irwin Lazar, principal analyst and program director for unified communications and collaboration with Nemertes Research. “IT executives say they are realizing cost savings, the ability to obtain additional bandwidth, and the support of non-IP protocols such as custom applications for monitoring systems or internal applications, as well the desire to maintain control over enterprise routing protocols.”

Adoption of MPLS services (Multiprotocol Label Switching) continues to increase, with 74% of enterprises indicating use of MPLS services and another 10% planning or evaluating its use, according to
the research benchmark. Three factors are driving the MPLS services increase of 76% from 2006 figures:

• Guaranteed performance for real-time, IP-based applications such as video and voice;
• Moving networks away from hub and spoke designs;
• Cost savings

“Of these three, optimization for real-time applications and more flexible network architecture were tops among IT executives justifying an MPLS migration,” says Lazar.

The report is part of Nemeretes’ Advanced Communications Services benchmark, which includes detailed interviews from 93 IT executives and survey responses from an additional 547 IT professionals, includes key recommendations around WAN services. The benchmark also discussed evaluation of SIP trunking and adoption plans around IPv6.

About the Benchmark
The five-volume benchmark examines several topics, including building a better WAN, wireless trends, branch-office recommendations, organizational best practices, and contract-negotiation analysis.

About Nemertes Research
Nemertes Research is an analyst firm that specializes in analyzing and quantifying the business value of emerging technologies. We select technical and business issues to research based on input from our clients and benchmarks participants. You can learn more about Nemertes Research at
our website www.nemertes.com.