From: Rick Ernst [mailto:nanog@shreddedmail.com]
an even bigger bite out of DS-3. The bigger pipes seem to favor ethernet. A recent upgrade from OC-3 to GigE transport actually saved us a large chunk of money.
We recently had exactly the opposite experience, unfortunately. During relocation of our datacenter we asked our MPLS WAN provider to provide GigE transport rather than the multiple OC-3s we were using today. To us it seemed like it would be cheaper - GigE interfaces, even WAN-PHY rated ones, were orders of magnitude cheaper than SONET. Unfortunately the provider came back with absolutely outrageous costs for the port, claiming they had to do non-standard agreements with incumbents to provide the lines to us (despite the amount of circuits already in the site). This may be more a function of that particular provider, however.