Cox Business, a division of Cox Communications, is touting the efficiencies of its Ethernet-based business services over traditional legacy frame relay and private line services.

“The vast majority of advanced data networking circuits in use today by businesses utilize legacy technologies such as frame relay or private line services that were aggressively deployed over the last two decades by regional telecom carriers,” said Kristine Faulkner, vice president of product development and management for Cox Business. “Although Ethernet represents an ideal solution for many businesses, these traditional telecom carriers have very little incentive to migrate customers from higher billing legacy services.” 

According to Vertical Systems Group, the majority of business Ethernet deployment will come from the replacement of legacy services. Cox said that Ethernet services provide a simpler, more transparent, lower cost and far more scalable transport option than many legacy technologies. \Most existing customer frame relay circuits, and more than half of the deployed private lines, operate at a rate of 1.5 Mbps or less. With Ethernet services, businesses get multi-megabit to Gigabit transport speeds for a fraction of the cost per bit as compared to what they currently pay for their legacy services, according to Cox.

“The economy is forcing managers to aggressively and strategically drive cost out of their business. Replacing legacy networking connections with Ethernet is an immediate way to reduce operational costs, while gaining greater flexibility and scalability for future growth,” said Rosemary Cochran, a principal at Vertical Systems Group. “As businesses make final IT spending and strategy adjustments for 2009, this will be a top consideration.”

American National Bank, a regional network of financial institutions based in Omaha, Neb., uses Cox Business Ethernet services to share information between its headquarters location, data center and more than 20 bank branches. 

Cox said the Ethernet platform for American National Bank includes redundant connectivity for enhanced business continuity and supports banking applications, including check imaging, ATM data transfer and Internet access.

“By migrating our network from frame relay to Ethernet, we were able to double the size of our connections and add redundancy for disaster recovery, without any additional cost,” said Jim Burns, senior vice president of American National Bank. 

Burns said the Cox Business Ethernet platform created a more effective and reliable network, as well as the ability to scale the platform to keep pace with future growth.

After experiencing additional reliability and functionality on its core network due to the initial Ethernet migration, American National Bank is now considering a similar evolution with its broader ATM network. 

Cox Business is the fourth-largest Ethernet service provider in the U.S., according to Vertical Systems Group, and is the only multiple system cable operator ranked in the top tier. The global Metro Ethernet Forum has certified Cox Business as MEF 9 and MEF 14 compliant.