AT&T Maintains Lead in Latest Global Ethernet Rankings

AT&T retained the top spot, followed by Colt and CenturyLink, in Vertical Systems Group’s (VSG) year-end 2019 Global Provider Ethernet Leaderboard.

In fourth is Orange Business Services, followed by BT Global Services, Verizon and NTT. Orange Business moved up from fifth to fourth, surpassing BT.

Before AT&T gained the top spot in 2018, Orange Business took the top spot on every year-end global provider leaderboard between 2009 and 2017.

SG calls its leaderboard the “industry’s benchmark for multinational Ethernet network market presence,” ranking companies that hold a 4% 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.

“No provider dominates the upper tier of the global networks segment of the Ethernet services market,” said Rick Malone, principal of VSG. “At year-end 2019, only a few share points separated the top-ranked companies that support business-critical global networks. During 2020 we anticipate share shifts as the coronavirus impacts supply chains and service rollouts in heavily affected countries.”

The leaderboard companies represent four countries — the United States (AT&T, CenturyLink, Verizon), the United Kingdom (Colt, BT), France (Orange Business) and Japan (NTT).

Cogent, Global Cloud Xchange, GTT, SingTel, T-Systems, Tata Communications, Telefonica Worldwide and Vodafone ranked in the Challenge tier, which includes companies with between 2 and 4% share.

Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) certification is recognized as a market differentiator for Ethernet providers. Orange Business is the first company on the leaderboard to achieve MEF 3.0 CE certification. AT&T, Colt, CenturyLink, Verizon and NTT have MEF CE 2.0 certification; and BT is MEF CE 1.0 certified.