While the complexion of major metropolitan areas, with the exception of Las Vegas, changes painfully slowly, the real pain service providers face is an inability to over-haul their metro networking strategies.

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The rapid ascension of IPTV and other non-enterprise, high-bandwidth services promises to recast the metro networking market swiftly into one that revolves almost entirely around the all-important consumer.

Supplier strategies in the metro market long have been justified on the bandwidth consumption of enterprise America. Continuing to do so in this time of transition means sticking with a business case that's fast flawed.

Consider the numbers:

Assume that there are roughly 50,000 enterprise sites spread across approximately 250 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) nationwide. This leaves a meager 200 major broadband users per metro area.

Now, know that there are roughly 60 million to 80 million broadband consumers across these same 250 MSAs.

"Given that broadband consumers are devouring higher-bandwidth services such as IPTV and increasingly online gaming, we're on the cusp of a major transformation of the metro market," explains Tom Nolle, founder and president of CIMI Corp.

While Nolle believes his numbers don't lie, any supplier that tells you the metro market is still predicted on enterprise bandwidth consumption is doing just that, or is simply dangerously unaware of the true business case for metro-area bandwidth.

Shock & Awe?

Does this fast-moving transformation represent a shock and awe situation for suppliers? Not for the visionaries, says Nolle, who long has been tracking major product introductions, vendor strategies and enterprise user priorities, and who believes Ciena and Alcatel, with their flurry of successes in IPTV undertakings, truly get it.

But what of backbone network players such as Juniper, which made its name and fame with large core routing platforms? How can these players cash in on the shifting business case for opportunities in the metro market?

It appears there are three main choices:

1. Augment current product portfolios with edge devices;

2. Strike alliances and/or acquire firms that possess what you lack; or

3. A combination of choices one and two.

On the power of recent and relevant platform rollouts, Juniper seems to be focusing on option one, though given the sense of urgency involved in acquiring a metro strategy, option three may be optimal.

But there's a vast difference between simply playing in the changing metro market and playing to win. The latter can require a radical shift in thinking from an enterprise focus to a consumer-dominated one, from top to bottom in your organizations.

Thinking Ahead

While few, if any, will argue that the metro is undergoing a major transformation, many suppliers seek more details when it comes to who is consuming the most bandwidth now and in the near future.

A case in point: Cisco Systems.

"I'd have to say that the majority of bandwidth consumption in the metro is done by enterprises," says Jeff Spagnola, vice president of service provider marketing at Cisco. "But I don't see that being the case too much longer."

With service providers in the peddle-to-the-metal mindset when it comes to IPTV, it would come as no surprise that these operators focus foremost on driving traffic from broadband consumers. "The record in the U.S.--what with SBC and Verizon--is pretty clear. RBOCs are spending billions on updating metro nets for IPTV, as they see this as a way to sustain long-term viability," Spagnola explains. "They fully realize they need to participate in transport and content areas, which is why they're spending big on a metro footprint that gets them closer to the curb."

Double-Barrel Traffic Boom

Perhaps service providers would be best advised to plan for big boosts in metro traffic from both sectors--enterprise and consumer--regardless of which actually makes up the majority for any stretch. At least that's the enlightened position Alcatel has embraced.

"With the spread of DSL, it's only been the last few years where we've seen a substantial uptick in the consumer portion," explains Tom Fuerst, vice president of market positioning for Alcatel. "We are standing on the edge of a huge leap in consumer traffic, driven by triple-play services."

The wide scale build out of metro networks, such as SBC's, will also drive metro traffic as generated by enterprise America, Fuerst contends. "They've rebuilt their whole network to address both markets and realize, as we do, that this will also result in soaring consumption of IP and Ethernet-based services by businesses. These sites will also be looking for more robust VPN and VPLS services going forward."

Sage industry analysts concur that it's dangerous to assume that metro traffic from corporate sites won't continue its rise.

Marked changes in the messaging landscape (more and larger attachments) coupled with heightened business continuity, regulatory and compliance requirements have increased the amount of traffic on metro networks dramatically.

Whether the driver is HIPAA, Sarbannes-Oxley or fear of business-critical data loss, it's crystal clear that more and larger amounts of content are being stored, if not permanently archived, off-site. What remains unclear is just how often--and for how long--this traffic actually is flowing over the metro network in the course of the day, en route to a local or remote destination.

"The size of e-mails is exploding along with the storage demands of corporations," notes Daniel Briere, CEO of TeleChoice. "What will determine if this remains the case is not just IPTV, but the mechanics of its housing and delivery." After several years of investment in fiber loops, he contends that there's still likely a glut of transport capacity, which raises the killer question of where exactly do business opportunities for equipment suppliers lie?

Shifting Equipment Trends?

The nature of services in the metro and beyond also seems to be dictating a shift in the types of network infrastructures that provide the added value. Whether it's VoIP, IPTV, etc., suppliers should be aware of what industry experts see as a fundamental shift in the elements required to drive new and advanced services.

While this shift doesn't represent a mass exodus from traditional network infrastructure, there's certainly evidence of a move from switches to servers.

Consider a few current realities and the big-picture implications of a little-analyzed news event, which has plenty of business relevance.

With VoIP, the technology that's reshaping forever the way voice traffic is being handled on a global basis, the core functionality, SIP, resides in the SIP server. And with IPTV, which is already reshaping the way operators provide services, much of the foundational intelligence resides in video and home servers. These devices become the brains of the metro business blueprint.

Buttressing this shift is Nortel's technology alliance with computing giant IBM, which, at face value, sure looked like a garden-variety, vendor handholding event. There's a strong case for just the opposite.

When you strip away the outer skin of this announcement in search of business relevance, you learn that the target end result from this collaboration is server blades, an area in which IBM has as much expertise as telcos do with transport.

Servers, and the blades that comprise them, are highly flexible, versatile, programmable, and therefore most always intelligent. These business-critical traits are of paramount importance for service providers often struggling to manage ongoing change on many fronts. Thus servers are a top priority of equipment suppliers.

This is especially the case when you talk IPTV distribution. Telcos have evaluated the cable operator model of using a huge central head end from which all programming is broadcast to homes in a one-to-every approach, one which SBC is enhancing.

"Sure, we'll have super--and redundant--head ends in all major markets, but they'll be augmented by what we call video-on-demand servers that are located much closer to consumers," explains Jeff Weber, vice president of product and strategy at SBC Communications. "The old cable TV model has strengths, but our work on video consumption habits and the accompanying demands on distribution networks has driven an enhanced server-augmented approach."

It's precisely servers, which run under many generic names, that can best position suppliers and their service provider customers in their scramble to answer the proverbial door when opportunity knocks.