Cable companies are seeing decent success in targeting small and medium businesses (SMB) with phone and Internet connectivity packages. Small companies who may have a single T1 and five business phone lines can see significant savings in moving to cable SMB offers.
That’s probably one factor taken into consideration by Qwest when prepping their new scaled down Ethernet offerings. They now offer 3/5/7 Mb/s Ethernet tiers for small businesses who are “interested in deploying an Ethernet-based broadband network, or for cost-effectively connecting a remote office branch to a larger enterprise network.”
Ethernet services are ideal for transparent LAN service and Internet access for small companies with multiple locations. Once the domain of Enterprise sized customers only, Ethernet can now be offered to much smaller businesses, offering a potential growth engine for telco and cable competitors alike.