CenturyLink Consolidates Ethernet Effort

By Paula Bernier
Executive Editor, TMC

CenturyLink (News - Alert) is working to consolidate its line of Ethernet services in an effort to simplify the portfolio and expedite provisioning, as reported last week. Dean Douglas, president of sales and marketing of CenturyLink, reportedly talked about this during the service provider’s recent fourth quarter earnings call.

The plan apparently calls for the company to move its multiple Ethernet offerings, which today exist on multiple platforms, to a single Carrier Ethernet 2.0-compliant platform. Fierce Telecom (News - Alert) says CenturyLink expects to provide details on the timing of all this in an announcement early this summer.

According to the CenturyLink website, the company delivers Ethernet services to more than 2,300 locations in 35 states. These services fall into the metro Ethernet and E-Line categories.

Metro Ethernet services leverage Ethernet and optical technology to provide low-cost, scalable, and secure bandwidth across metropolitan area networks. Meanwhile, E-Line is a national and metro Ethernet private line service. It connects customer sites within and between major U.S. metropolitan markets. And it offers dedicated bandwidth from 5 to 1,000 megabits per second.

CenturyLink’s merger with Level 3 will strengthen the company’s Ethernet play even more. Level 3 placed fifth on the mid-year 2016 Vertical Systems Group’s Ethernet Leaderboard. Meanwhile, Orange Business of France, Colt and BT (News - Alert) Global Services of the U.K., and AT&T were in the first four positions on the leaderboard. Verizon was at No. 6, and NTT of Japan was after that. Vertical Systems Group in the report called Cogent, Global Cloud Xchange, SingTel, T-Systems, Tata, Telefonica, and Vodafone (News - Alert) challengers in the global Ethernet service provider category.

The CenturyLink-Level 3 merger, which was announced Oct. 31 of last year, is now in the approvals process. CenturyLink earlier this week announced that Ohio and Utah have approved its merger with Level 3. Nevada also has green-lighted the deal.

As for CenturyLink’s recent earnings discussion, the company said in 2016 its operating revenues and cash flow fell below expectations.

“We are not satisfied with these results and are making progress in a number of areas focused on continuing to improve our customer experience and further positioning CenturyLink for long-term growth,” commented CEO Glen F. Post III, referencing organizational realignments the company has initiated to allow for faster decision making and market responsiveness.