CenturyLink ended 2019 on top of Vertical Systems Group's Ethernet Leaderboard while Spectrum Enterprise vaulted over Verizon for third place.
AT&T was second overall while Verizon came in fourth followed, in order, by Comcast Business, Windstream Enterprise and Cox Business. In order to qualify for the a Leaderboard ranking, service providers needed to have 4% or more market share of U.S. Ethernet services. Comcast had the highest year-over-year market share growth across the 2019 Leaderboard providers.
“The base of U.S. Ethernet ports increased by 8.9% in 2019, buoyed by healthy demand for higher speed access to cloud, internet and VPN services,” said Rick Malone, principal of Vertical Systems Group, in a statement. “During the past year, Ethernet providers focused on better monetizing service features to expand their existing business, while introducing streamlined offers to target the needs of the SMB market.”
Six companies attained a 2019 "Challenge Tier" ranking by Vertical Systems Group: Altice USA, Cogent, Frontier, GTT, Sprint and Zayo. The Challenge Tier included providers with between 1% and 4% share of the U.S. retail Ethernet market.
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Some of the big U.S. Ethernet market trends for last year included:
• Retail U.S. Ethernet installations increased 8.9% to more than 1.25 million customer ports.
• Price compression, particularly for high speed services, continues to limit Ethernet revenue growth.
• Ethernet is the WAN underlay of choice for carrier managed SD-WAN solutions requiring secure, dedicated high-speed connectivity.
• Active fiber build-outs across the U.S. are enabling Ethernet footprint expansions to serve a broader base of mid-market customers.
• Ethernet service enhancements are providing customers with improved performance, faster installations, and more flexible network configurations.