Ethernet - busting the jargon

We could say to you, “A Fibre Ethernet leased line provides dedicated, uncontended connectivity, with symmetrical bandwidth and a 99.9% availability SLA.”

“Fair enough” you might reply… “But what does any of that stuff mean?”

If you’re in that position, and you don’t know your SLA from your contention ratio, this article is for you.

We won’t patronise you by explaining what downloads and uploads are, but here’s some of the Ethernet jargon you might not be so familiar with.

Ethernet

When most people hear the word ‘Ethernet’ they instinctively think of the cables that connect their PC to their router. Actually, those leads are usually Cat5 or Cat6 cables.

However, the fact that they are ubiquitously referred to as ‘Ethernet’ cables is not without merit.

Ethernet is the technology involved in the transfer of data across leased line, local area and wide area networks (and they share the same physical connector too). The reason why most leased lines are indeed ‘Ethernet leased lines’ is because of the ease with which they communicate with regular networks – that’s all because of the Ethernet protocol (enabling your leased line to ‘talk to’ your local network).

Leased line

A leased line is a connection that links two sites together. That might be two offices or a direct connection between an office and the internet, for example.

And, crucially, that connection is dedicated, symmetrical and provides a fixed bandwidth. More on these next…

Dedicated

Simply, this means that the connection is yours and yours alone. It isn’t shared by anyone else.

Symmetrical

Typical broadband connections are asymmetrical, which means download and upload speeds are different (download speeds are usually much higher than upload speeds).

With a symmetrical connection, upload and download speeds are the same. So if you pay for a 1Gbps connection, you’ll get that speed in both directions – up and down. And what’s more, even when you’re downloading a very large file, you’ll still get your full upload bandwidth, great if you’re regularly backing up data.

Fixed bandwidth

With a leased line, you get the bandwidth you pay for. If you pay for 10Mbps the full amount is yours. If you pay for 1Gbps, you’ll get that too… all the time.

Contention

That dedicated connection means your line is uncontended. We mentioned contention ratio above, and that refers to the amount of competition over the line. So, for example, with a traditional broadband connection, if 50 customers are sharing the same line the contention ratio would be 50:1.

Because leased lines are uncontended, the contention ratio is always 1:1. In other words, the line is exclusively yours. You don’t need to worry about users at other sites slowing down your connection.

Availability

In this context at least, availability is the same as uptime. If your connection is working, it’s available.

Leased lines typically come with a 99.9% availability SLA.

SLA

An SLA or Service Level Agreement is basically the promise from your provider below which the standard of your service should not fall. So, a 99.9% availability SLA is effectively a guarantee of availability 99.9% of the time. If availability falls below this figure, you can expect to receive some kind of recompense.

When taken with additional resiliency options, you can expect to achieve a 100% uptime SLA with a leased line from Zen.

Fibre

Fibre-optic cable is the transmission medium used for Fibre Ethernet. In other words, it’s what the data travels over.

Data travels more quickly over fibre than the copper wires traditionally used for older broadband connections.

There are a number of different types of leased line connectivity. These are the most common.

EFM (Ethernet in the First Mile)

This is a type of leased line connection that uses those older copper cables, making it a great choice in areas with no fibre infrastructure.

However, data is delivered over multiple cables to help ensure extra speed and reliability – it’s not your traditional broadband.

EoFTTC (Ethernet over FTTC)

Unsurprisingly, this is a way of delivering Ethernet over existing fibre infrastructure. You’ll still get the symmetrical upload and download speeds and exceptional reliability of course.

The advantages are cost savings and faster delivery (if you’re in a fibre area, the infrastructure already exists).

Fibre Ethernet

This is the ultimate in Ethernet leased line connectivity. You’ll want Fibre Ethernet for its up to 1Gbps connection speeds – great for businesses of any size. It might take a little longer to lay all the cables though – up to 65 days in fact – but you can usually take a temporary connectivity solution while you’re waiting.

We hope that’s cleared up some of the confusion around Ethernet. For more information on Ethernet leased lines from Zen – and to see how you could save up to 36% on your connection – please visit our website here (smaller businesses) or here (larger businesses).

You can also give us a call on 01706 902583 (smaller businesses) or 01706 902579 (larger businesses).