Research manager at Frost & Sullivan, Arun Chandrasekaran, estimates that the growth of WAN services in the Asia Pacific will remain at around 10 per cent until 2013.

Chandrasekaran said convergence of voice, video and data is prompting rising demand for multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) IP VPN services given its scalability, low total cost of ownership and ease in multiple site connectivity.

"Ethernet is proving to be the preferred technology for high-speeds and connectivity between limited sites such as data centre-to-data centre," he said in a statement.

Chandrasekaran also said a move toward IP and Ethernet services and away from legacy services grew rapidly over the past 12 months thanks to the weakness of the economy.

"Enterprises faced with unviable telecom operational expenditure switched to MPLS and Ethernet to reduce cost and simplify management," he said.