Leader AT&T and five other service providers earned a spot on Vertical Systems Group (VSGs) 2023 U.S. Carrier Ethernet Leaderboard.

The overall category rose 2.4%. The direct Internet access (DIA) sector drove the growth. It was somewhat offset, however, by the declining demand for switched service, according to VSG principal Rick Malone.

Malone called the year “challenging” and said that providers were dealing with “(T)he ongoing transition from legacy wireline data services to SD-WAN/SASE architectures.”

The Leaderboard, which consists of service providers with 4% or more of the retail Ethernet services market in the U.S. are, in order, AT&T, Lumen, Spectrum Enterprise, Verizon, Comcast Business and Cox Business.

The Challenge Tier notes companies that have between 1% and 4% of the market. They are, in order, Altice USA (including Optimum and Lightpath), Cogent, Frontier, GTT, Windstream and Zayo.

Key findings of the latest U.S. Ethernet Leaderboard:

• Lumen remains in second position based on port share that accounts for its spinoff of U.S. assets to Brightspeed, European assets to COLT, and South American assets to Stonepeak.
• Shares are tightening between several Leaderboard companies. This may impact mid-2024 rank positions.
• Rank positions changed for several companies cited in the Challenge Tier.
• Dedicated Internet/Cloud Access (DIA) is the top U.S. Ethernet service. Following it are Ethernet Private Lines, Ethernet Virtual Private Lines, E-Access to VPN, Metro LAN and WAN VPLS.
• Ethernet pricing has stabilized for lower speed services. Price compression persists for gigabit speed offerings.
• AT&T, Lumen and Verizon are the three LEADERBOARD companies with MEF 3.0 Carrier Ethernet (CE) certification.

The Market Player tier consists of providers below 1% of the retail Ethernet services market.

A non-exhaustive list of firms in this category, in alphabetical order: ACD, AireSpring, Alaska Communications, Altafiber, American Telesis, Arelion, Armstrong Business Solutions, Astound Business, Breezeline, Brightspeed, BT Global Services, Centracom, Consolidated Communications, Conterra, Crown Castle, Douglas Fast Net, DQE Communications, Exa Infrastructure, ExteNet Systems, Fatbeam, FiberLight, First Digital, FirstLight, Flo Networks, Fusion Connect, Global Cloud Xchange, Granite Telecom, Great Plains Communications, Hunter Communications, Intelsat, Logix Fiber Networks, LS Networks, MetTel, Midco, Momentum Telecom, NTT, Orange Business, Pilot Fiber, PS Lightwave, Ritter Communications, Segra (including UPN), Shentel Business, Silver Star Telecom, Sparklight Business, Syringa, Tata Communications, TDS Telecom, TPx, Uniti, US Signal, WOW!Business and Ziply Fiber.