Telecommunications Information Notice  06-01
Metro Ethernet

March 30, 2006

The Office of Telecommunications Management (OTM) has established contracts for Metro Ethernet services for specific metropolitan areas in Louisiana. Metro Ethernet is a service that transports data traffic between two or more customer Ethernet local area networks (LANs) and is compliant with IEEE 802.3 standards for Ethernet framing. These Metro Ethernet services are offered on a where already available basis, do not require State paid construction costs, and may not be available at all locations within the metropolitan areas. Metro Ethernet services are available at 10 Mbps, 100 Mbps, and 1 Gbps on a network basis, and 100 Mbps and 1 Gbps on a dedicated basis. Service is available in the following Louisiana metropolitan areas:

• Committed Bandwidth (CBW)--Assures that a minimum amount of bandwidth is always available, similar to the committed information rate (CIR) available in frame relay, as opposed to the best-effort offerings in Shared Metro Ethernet.
• Priority Plus--Offers the ability to prioritize Ethernet traffic for delay-sensitive applications to be handled with priority over other Ethernet traffic.
• Q-Forwarding--Provides VLAN aggregation across a common physical connection, enabling a customer to aggregate traffic from multiple VLANs to a central location.

Pricing assistance and further information on Metro Ethernet and Premium Metro Ethernet services can be obtained by contacting Johnel Chriss of OTM Network Services at 225-342-7797 or john.chriss@la.gov. Additional information and pricing for these services can be found  at www.doa.louisiana.gov/otm/catalog/metroethernet.htm. If your agency is unable to access this page, please contact the OTM Information and Training Section at 225-342-7723.