Broadband in the Metro Area has proven to be telecom’s one bright spot in 2001 – all the long haul backbone capacity in the world does you no good if you can’t move your data through the Metro bottleneck. But service providers are wrestling with all manner of technology choices (SONET? DWDM? Ethernet? The coming 10Gig Ethernet? ), and also face the challenge of easily and effectively accessing SANs and VPNs. Quality of service issues are crucial in recruiting and maintaining customers Steven Shepard lays bare the tricks and traps awaiting service providers in the metro area space, detailing the technological challenges and opportunities in his trademark lucid, humorous prose.