Ethernet over Copper is picking up steam. Hatteras Networks has something to do with that as they are the vendor for Metro Ethernet over Copper for former BellSouth. XO also has EoC in most of their markets. I saw an ad today from Tele-Pacific's EoC. Many of my clients - regional CLEC's - are selling G.SHDSL based services. Mammoth Networks offers EFM - Ethernet in the first mile. 

EoC is a great way to turn the copper plant to gold for facilities-based B2B CLEC's. (I know Dave Rusin will argue with me, but what can you do). However, because it is very distance sensitive, it has to be marketed in a sharpshooter kind of way. In telecom, we see the shotgun approach all the time. Throw it all out there and see what we hit. To market like a sharpshooter, you have to target who can actually receive the service. 

In the early days of DSL, no one did this well. Often prospects would receive numerous pieces of collateral that said they could get DSL, when in fact they were out of range of the service. It left a bad taste.  Our industry shouldn't repeat that mistake with EoC (or with FiOS or VDSL).

Marketing EoC is a lot like fixed wireless providers marketing a tower. The tower or the Central Office is the center of the circle. The targets are in a radius around that circle. 

Today, with all the data available to be mined, it is fairly easy to almost personalize a letter or postcard to each prospect about your offering that is specific to their vertical.  It just takes time and effort, which I know is a bad thing.

So you have EoC as a way to maximize copper for bandwidth and ARPU. That means that you can deliver higher bandwidth to a customer (and get more monthly recurring revenue) than you can with just DSL or a T1.

Most customers understand the concept of Ethernet. It is easier to integrate Ethernet with their LAN than a T1 or NxT1.  Keep it simple, right?

Due to distance limitations, it has to be carefully marketed to prospects where the service is available. The last thing you want to do is take calls (or orders) from customers who want it, but can't have it -- and you have to sell them a more expensive T solution. (Bait and switch?)

Target marketing is the key to EoC success.