Frost & Sullivan Recognizes tw telecom's Performance in the Booming Retail Carrier Ethernet Services Market

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., April 11, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Based on its recent analysis of the retail carrier Ethernet services market, Frost & Sullivan recognizes tw telecom with the 2011 North American Frost & Sullivan Award for Growth Leadership. Each year, this award is presented to the company that demonstrates excellence in capturing the highest compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for the last three years. tw telecom's Ethernet services revenue grew at a CAGR of 28 percent from 2008 to 2010, which is commendable considering the relatively weak economic situation during that period.

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The overall retail Carrier Ethernet services market itself expanded at an impressive annual growth rate of 40 percent in 2010 to exceed $2.1 billion in revenues. It is fast becoming the de facto service for access to VPNs, Internet, and E-Line, replacing traditional private line circuits. Metro E-LAN continues to see growth in key verticals such as health care, government and education as these areas often need multipoint to multipoint connectivity.

"While all communication service providers (CSPs) are ramping up their network footprint, service portfolios and SLAs to take advantage of the growing market demand, tw telecom has long been the key challenger to the top two CSPs in the market with its fiber-based services strategy," said Frost & Sullivan Program Manager – BCS, Roopashree Honnachari. "By enabling Ethernet services to midsize and large enterprise locations through fiber connections, tw telecom already has more than 15,500 fiber lit buildings contributing to its success in the metro Ethernet market."

As the demand for Ethernet continues to grow, tw telecom has signed Ethernet network-to-network interconnectivity agreements with multiple service providers to expand its metro footprint.  At the same time, tw telecom has also invested CAPEX in rolling out national E-Line networks to take advantage of the market demand for long haul Ethernet services.

"A key trend in the market is the combination of Layer 2 Ethernet services and Layer 3 MPLS services in customers' WAN networks, which is driving CSPs' focus on extending the application-aware networking tools that they offer with MPLS VPNs to Ethernet services," said Honnachari. "While convergence of applications–voice, video and data–is driving market demand for MPLS VPNs, the fact that customers can retain routing control of the network has led to adoption of Layer 2 Ethernet services for running secure applications."

In response, tw telecom has aligned its MPLS and Ethernet service offerings to enable customers to create hybrid network services. In fact, the company's Ethernet class of service offerings mirrors that of its MPLS VPN services.

In addition to the product and service enhancements, tw telecom has a strong direct sales strategy with account executives and sales engineers across local markets reporting to their nearest general manager responsible for metro specific profit and loss accounts. The aim of having such a support structure is to decentralize decision making as deemed appropriate in the local markets, while providing enterprise customers with local planning and engineering expertise in building out metro and wide area networks. tw telecom also uses indirect channels to sell its data and IP services across the U.S. footprint, and the company has reported tremendous growth in revenues from reseller channels.

Overall, tw telecom, with its broad portfolio of offerings, focused sales/marketing efforts, and emphasis on customer service, has demonstrated consistent revenue and market share growth to emerge as the third largest service provider in the retail carrier Ethernet services market.

Frost & Sullivan's Best Practices Awards recognize companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About tw telecom

tw telecom, headquartered in Littleton, CO, is a leading provider of managed networking solutions to a wide array of businesses and organizations in 75 markets spanning 30 states and D.C. As one of the country's premier competitive service providers, tw telecom integrates data, dedicated Internet access, and local and long distance voice services for long distance carriers, wireless communications companies, incumbent local exchange carriers, and enterprise organizations in healthcare, finance, higher education, manufacturing, and hospitality industries, as well as for military, state and local government.

The company began business in 1993 as a joint venture with Time Warner Cable (now a unit of Time Warner Inc.). Since 1997, it has focused on delivering services to business customers, including carriers and governmental entities, and on expanding from dedicated services into Voice Services, Internet and data. In July 1998, it became a separate entity apart from Time Warner Cable and was reorganized into Time Warner Telecom LLC. In May 1999, it issued an IPO and became Time Warner Telecom Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.twtelecom.com.

About Frost & Sullivan

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SOURCE Frost & Sullivan