AT&T Leads Latest Global Ethernet Rankings Shake-Up

AT&T jumped into the top spot, while Orange Business plummeted from first to fifth in Vertical Systems Group’s (VSG) year-end 2018 Global Provider Ethernet Leaderboard.

The top five positions have shuffled, with Colt, CenturyLink and BT Global Services advancing in the latest benchmark. Orange Business previously took the top spot on every year-end global provider leaderboard between 2009 and 2017.

VSG calls its Leaderboard the industry’s benchmark for multinational Ethernet network market presence, ranking companies that hold a 4 percent or higher share of billable retail ports at sites outside of their respective home countries. Share margins continue to narrow among the leading global service providers in this very competitive market segment.

AT&T holds the top position, which it initially gained by surpassing Orange Business in mid-2018. AT&T ranked second at the end of 2017.

Colt ranks second, up from third position in 2017, while CenturyLink is now third. CenturyLink ranked fourth at year-end 2017 when it initially entered the top tier following its acquisition of Level 3.

BT Global Services is fourth, advancing from fifth in 2017. Verizon and NTT round out the leaderboard in sixth and seventh.

“Multinational customers are massively upgrading bandwidth and expanding connectivity to cloud services and data centers,” said Rick Malone, principal of VSG. “Ethernet providers with extensive global fiber footprints that deeply serve strategic business hubs are capturing a large portion of this new business.”

Cogent, GTT, SingTel, T-Systems, Tata Communications, Telefonica Worldwide and Vodafone ranked in the Challenge tier, which includes companies with between 2-4 percent share. GTT is a new entrant to the Challenge tier, advancing for the first time from the Market Player tier, which includes all global providers with port share less than 2 percent.

Metro Ethernet Forum certification is recognized as a market differentiator for Ethernet providers. Providers on the leaderboard that have received MEF CE 2.0 certification as of March are: AT&T, Colt, CenturyLink and Verizon; on the Challenge tier: SingTel, T-Systems, Tata, Telefonica and Vodafone.