Carrier Ethernet/MPLS TCO comparison brings surprises

CIMI Corporation has completed an extensive survey-and-model process on the economics of carrier infrastructure, focusing on the TCO differences between Carrier Ethernet and IP/MPLS. The results of this study will be published in the July issue of our newsletter Netwatcher, and we will also release a separate report in the fall.

The results of the study, which surprised us considerably, were that while Ethernet always generated lower capex costs, it was also unusually vulnerable to issues in service management efficiency, especially in the WAN versus metro. Those issues could swing the TCO in IP’s favor, providing that IP service management was strong. In fact, the effectiveness of service management tools on controlling operations costs and support incidents had more effect on TCO than a swing in capital cost of over 40%.