Ethernet to Your ISP

Today I was chatting in the #snort-gui channel on irc.freenode.net, and someone (who shall rename anonymous) mentioned that his ISP provides Ethernet connectivity. This surprised me because my previous employer had DS3 circuits as one might see in the image below.Tapping a DS3 connection requires specialized gear (as shown in the DS3 tap, but access to Ethernet is more readily available.

How many of you have Ethernet connectivity to your ISP?

The reason I ask is that many monitoring deployments place the wire access device (e.g., a tap) between the border router and your firewall. If you have Ethernet to your ISP, you could place the tap in front of your border router. This scenario would provide visibility to traffic addressed to the Internet-facing interface of your border router. You could monitor for attacks against the router without having to tap a T1 or DS3 connection.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Some providers in India are providing Ethernet connection to Internet users.The clients essentially connect to providers local network. Some implementations I saw had Catalyst switches with port security enabled. But more commonly the clients are connected to 100 mbps hubs.
7:44 AM
Anonymous said…
Comcast Business in Baltimore puts an Alcatel device which has a fiber input, but it is handed over to the client in Ethernet.
10:49 PM
Anonymous said…
Would love to have straight Ethernet feed to my home. Right now, I've got cable modem which then feeds me Ethernet.

Price does matter, so does it cost more than your typical broadband connection?
Chuck
3:32 AM
Anonymous said…
Seems like it would be rather expensive given the length limitations of ethernet. Really can't imagine it being cost effective at all.
5:51 PM
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