"Is TDM going the way of dial-up?"

Fri Mar 26 15:35:37 UTC 2010

On Fri, 26 Mar 2010, Rick Ernst wrote:

> I've noticed over the last 3 years or so that TDM, specifically T-1, access
> and transport has been in a steady decline.  Customers are moving to FTTH
> and cable, or going WiMAX and Metro-Ethernet.  Ethernet seems to have taken
> an even bigger bite out of DS-3.  The bigger pipes seem to favor ethernet. A
> recent upgrade from OC-3 to GigE transport actually saved us a large chunk
> of money.
>
> I'm wondering if others are seeing the same behavior, if it's
> market-dependant, or if I'm just imagining things.  I'm working on building
> new infrastructure and my current thoughts are to minimize my TDM
> footprint.  It would be useful to get a better feel if this is an overall
> trend or something local.

I tend to think this is market dependent.  In major population centers, 
TDM service may well be on the decline, but I'd suspect that Ethernet 
based services have a much lower penetration in areas with lower 
population densities.

I don't see TDM going away entirely any time soon because it still comes 
in handy for things like out-of-band management, etc, plus nowadays there 
is lots of TDM gear on the secondary market that can be picked up 
dirt-cheap.

jms