Recently launched, BT Etherflow is the next generation, adaptive, high-performance National Ethernet Wide Area Network (WAN) and the first BT service to take advantage of BT’s 21st Century Network. BT is investing over £10 billion in the new digital network across UK and Ireland, and this is a cornerstone product.

BT Etherflow enables customers to choose from a set of pre-defined orderable “building blocks.” With this flexible approach customers can meet their immediate requirements, but also adapt the service to their changing needs.

The foundation release has access speeds of 10Mbit/s, 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s; with standard and protected accesses, bandwidths between sites from 200Kbit/s to 1Gbit/s in small increments and two classes of service.

In the UK and Northern Ireland the BT Etherflow service has over 86% business coverage at launch from over 600 Points of Presence (PoP’s). Within Ireland there will be focused coverage initially and this will be scaled over time. The design and network are the same in both jurisdictions. As the 21CN role out continues the number of PoPs will rise until 2011 increasing coverage and reducing connection costs.

BT Etherflow, IPClear and IP Converge are all services running on MPLS service platforms. BT Etherflow is therefore positioned as complementary to our IP/MPLS services with each service appealing to specific customer requirements. Etherflow is the ideal evolution path for CellStream, FrameStream, MegaStream Ethernet and high bandwidth Leased Lines.

As a 21CN inspired service BT Etherflow and its BT Wholesale equivalent, Wholesale Ethernet, are built using a library of common reusable capabilities reducing time and cost of getting the products to market. Both of these services have been developed to the different needs of wholesale and corporate customers. The differences are the service wrap and commercials.

The service is ideal for organisations who are technically sophisticated and have requirements for high bandwidth services between a small numbers of sites either managed or un-managed. The organisation might also be considering their evolution from CellStream (ATM) FrameStream (Frame Relay) or legacy Ethernet products.

Providing uncontended, faster bandwidth at the same speed in both directions, the new services are ideal for firms transferring more data between sites including cloud computing, remote back-up and voice applications. With speed options from 2Mbps to 1Gb per second, users can flex their networks according to speed, size, scale and configuration as needs change.

Based on BT’s 21CN platform, the new technology is available over the UK’s biggest Ethernet footprint of more than 600 connection points. The increased reach has brought the price down. The service is available on customers’ IP VPN, internet, and new end-to-end Ethernet services. BT Business can also manage the network to free up in-house resource for other projects.

“BT is investing in technology to give businesses a choice of data services and value for money. In these difficult times, Ethernet can help firms save thousands over old technology, increase productivity just when it’s needed most and put you in a better position for the upturn when it comes.”

BT Etherflow has been named Best New Ethernet Service by US research group Light Reading at its inaugural Ethernet Expo Europe awards. Judges said it was a “clear winner” in the category, in which it competed with services from other providers.