Orange Business Services retained the top spot on Vertical Systems Group’s year-end 2017 Global Provider Ethernet Leaderboard, while CenturyLink was a new entrant, taking the fourth spot, based on ports acquired from its Level 3 Communications acquisition.

VSG calls its Leaderboard the industry’s benchmark for multinational Ethernet network market presence, ranking companies that hold a 4 percent or higher share of billable retail ports at sites outside of their respective home countries. AT&T stole the No. 2 spot from Colt, which dropped to third position.

BT Global Services took the fifth spot, followed by Verizon in sixth and NTT in seventh. At midyear 2017, Level 3 ranked fourth on the Leaderboard and CenturyLink was in the Market Player tier, which includes companies with port share below 2 percent.

“With very slim margins separating the leading global service providers, Orange remains in first position, AT&T advances to second, and CenturyLink makes its debut,” said Rick Malone, principal at Vertical Systems Group. “To serve this specialized global market, key providers are increasing deployments of higher-speed Ethernet connectivity to MPLS, VPLS and cloud services, while transitioning customers to more dynamic, advanced SDN-based hybrid WAN and SD-WAN offerings.”

The Challenge tier of global providers includes companies with a share between 2 and 4 percent of the market. Cogent, Global Cloud XChange, SingTel, T-Systems, Tata Communications, Telefonica Worldwide and Vodafone are among the companies in this tier.

Metro Ethernet Forum certification is recognized as a market differentiator for Ethernet providers. Providers on the Leaderboar that have received MEF CE 2.0 certification as of March are: AT&T, Colt, CenturyLink and Verizon; on the Challenge tier, SingTel, T-Systems, Tata, Telefonica and Vodafone have it.