• The trend is clear: Ethernet is growing in the access space to the detriment and displacement of Sonet/synchronous digital hierarchy, as service providers continue to look for ways to reduce operating expenditures and enable new revenue streams.

Michael Howard, principal analyst, Infonetics Research

• We had a mix of Wan solutions in place, including some 2Mbit/s E1 private virtual circuits, as well as a lot of ISDN and dial-up sites. The cost and performance of these solutions made us want to move away from these to broadband.

• The main benefit, particularly at the low-end, is that we have a much happier customer base because broadband gives us much more effective connections into the council’s network, as well as excellent options for small sites and teleworkers.

Tim Jeffs, network and communications manager, Luton Borough Council

• Traditional, legacy systems based on ATM, Frame Relay and synchronous digital hierarchy have connectivity limitations in that customers are tied to specific jumps – for instance from a 2Mbit/s E1 to an 34Mbit/s E3, then a 155Mbit/s link, even though they might not need that much bandwidth. Ethernet allows providers to be much more flexible in the bandwidth they offer.

Fernando Elizalde, analyst for ICT Europe, Frost & Sullivan

• When I took the college ATM-based Lan over in 2004 it had already been in for seven years, and we were deliberating whether we should sweat the asset any longer or change. Some of the Alcatel equipment around the edge – of the network – was a bit doddery but the security of support was the main risk. Outside the Ministry of Defence, very few organisations are running that large an ATM network and we were worried that we would become beholden to one specialist support vendor who would charge at a premium. Plus, we had the issue of where we were going to get any spare parts.

Liam Maxwell, head of ICT, Eton College