How Lumen Ethernet on Demand Pricing Works
Lumen Ethernet on Demand (EoD) is the Layer 2 sibling of Internet on Demand. Where IoD gives you on-demand internet bandwidth, EoD gives you on-demand private Ethernet circuits — typically between your data center and a cloud provider, between two of your sites, or between a customer-premise location and a partner data center. Like IoD, it is billed by the hour at whatever bandwidth tier the EVC is currently set to. No long-term commitment, no early termination liability, and tier changes that take effect in minutes through the same NaaS API.
Three things drive your EoD bill:
1. EVC type — Customer Premise vs. Datacenter Expansion (the two pricing schedules) 2. Class of Service — Basic, Enhanced, or Dedicated (three QoS tiers) 3. Bandwidth tier — anywhere from 10 Mbps to 100 Gbps
Multiply the hourly rate for that combination by the hours your EVC is at that tier in a given month, and you have your bill. The lever you control — and the reason scheduling makes sense — is the bandwidth tier.
The Two EoD EVC Types
Lumen prices EoD differently depending on where the circuit terminates. There are two EVC pricing schedules:
Customer Premise (Metro and Long-haul) — EVCs that terminate at a customer location (an office, a branch, a colo). This schedule covers tiers from 10 Mbps up to 100 Gbps and is the most common for enterprise WAN scenarios. Hourly rates start around $0.44/hr at 10 Mbps Basic and scale up to $18.30/hr at 100 Gbps Dedicated.
Datacenter Expansion / Cloud — EVCs that terminate inside a partner data center or to a cloud on-ramp (AWS, Azure, GCP, Oracle). Pricing is materially lower than Customer Premise, starts at 50 Mbps (no 10/20 Mbps options), and tops out at 100 Gbps. Hourly rates start around $0.51/hr at 50 Mbps Basic and scale to $11.89/hr at 100 Gbps Dedicated.
If you are building Direct Connect–style architectures between a colo cage and AWS, you will use the Datacenter Expansion schedule. If you are wiring up a branch office to your DC, you will use the Customer Premise schedule.
The Three Class of Service Tiers
Each EoD bandwidth tier is offered at three Class of Service (CoS) levels. CoS controls how Lumen prioritizes your traffic across the metro and long-haul backbone.
Basic — Best-effort delivery. Suitable for general data, file replication, backup traffic, and any workload that tolerates jitter and occasional reordering. The cheapest of the three tiers — typically 10–20% below Enhanced at the same bandwidth.
Enhanced — Prioritized delivery suitable for converged voice/video workloads alongside data. Enhanced is the most common CoS for enterprise WAN traffic that includes UC/VoIP and video conferencing.
Dedicated — The premium CoS, suitable for real-time and latency-sensitive workloads. At 100 Mbps Customer Premise, Dedicated is roughly 27% more expensive per hour than Basic. The spread widens at higher tiers.
A practical pattern: pick CoS once for the EVC and never change it. Pick bandwidth tier on a schedule and change it constantly.
EoD Bandwidth Tier Reference
The Customer Premise schedule covers 24 bandwidth tiers:
10 Mbps · 20 Mbps · 50 Mbps · 100 Mbps · 200 Mbps · 300 Mbps · 400 Mbps · 500 Mbps · 1 Gbps · 2 Gbps · 3 Gbps · 5 Gbps · 10 Gbps · 15 Gbps · 20 Gbps · 25 Gbps · 30 Gbps · 40 Gbps · 50 Gbps · 60 Gbps · 70 Gbps · 80 Gbps · 90 Gbps · 100 Gbps
Reference rates (hourly, USD) at common tiers:
| Tier | Basic | Enhanced | Dedicated |
|---|---|---|---|
| 100 Mbps | $1.01 | $1.11 | $1.28 |
| 500 Mbps | $1.79 | $1.97 | $2.24 |
| 1 Gbps | $2.21 | $2.43 | $2.76 |
| 5 Gbps | $3.73 | $4.11 | $4.67 |
| 10 Gbps | $4.47 | $4.92 | $7.00 |
| 100 Gbps | $14.64 | $16.11 | $18.30 |
[CONFIDENCE: MEDIUM — Rates above are reference values reflecting publicly observed Lumen EoD pricing; your contracted rates may vary by metro and term. Verify against your Lumen Connect price quote before committing to a budget.]
The Datacenter Expansion schedule starts at 50 Mbps and is materially cheaper at every tier — for example, 1 Gbps Basic on Datacenter Expansion runs about $1.44/hr vs $2.21/hr for Customer Premise.
Pricing Examples by Use Case
Branch office WAN, 200 Mbps Enhanced, 24/7 (no scheduling) $1.42/hr × 720 hours/month = ~$1,022/month per EVC. For three branches, that is ~$3,066/month.
Same branch office, scheduled — 200 Mbps business hours, 50 Mbps off-peak - Business hours (~220 hr/mo) at $1.42/hr = $312 - Off-peak (~500 hr/mo) at $0.86/hr = $430 - New monthly cost: ~$742/month, a savings of ~$280/EVC. Across three branches: ~$840/month saved for the price of $50/month software.
Colo to AWS, 1 Gbps Enhanced Datacenter Expansion - Static, 24/7: $1.58/hr × 720 = ~$1,138/month - Scheduled to 100 Mbps overnight and on weekends (50% off-peak hours): drops to roughly $770/month, saving about $370/month per EVC
These are conservative estimates — real savings depend on how many off-peak hours you can identify in your environment. The interactive [EoD cost calculator](/features/ethernet-on-demand) on apptifi.com lets you change every variable and see the projected monthly cost in real time.
EoD vs IoD Pricing — When Does Each Make Sense
Both products use the same hourly billing model, but the rates and use cases diverge.
| Internet on Demand (IoD) | Ethernet on Demand (EoD) | |
|---|---|---|
| Layer | Layer 3 (public internet) | Layer 2 (private Ethernet) |
| Endpoints | Customer site to internet | Site-to-site or site-to-cloud |
| Tier range | 1 Mbps – 100 Gbps (14 tiers) | 10 Mbps – 100 Gbps (24 tiers) |
| Class of Service | N/A (best-effort) | Basic / Enhanced / Dedicated |
| Typical use | Branch internet, burst capacity | Cloud on-ramps, DC interconnect, private WAN |
| 1 Gbps reference rate | ~$1.06–$1.08/hr | ~$2.21/hr (Premise Basic) |
If you need internet access, use IoD. If you need a private path between two known endpoints — especially anything terminating in a partner data center or cloud region — use EoD.
For a deeper comparison, see [Internet on Demand pricing per hour](/blog/lumen-iod-pricing-per-hour).
Cutting EoD Costs with Scheduling
The same scheduling logic that cuts IoD bills works for EoD, with one wrinkle: EoD has more dimensions to optimize. With IoD you change a single tier; with EoD the EVC type and CoS are fixed at order time but the bandwidth tier is fully on-demand.
The four highest-impact EoD scheduling patterns:
1. Off-peak tier reduction. The bread and butter. Drop your business-hours tier to 10–25% of peak overnight and on weekends. For most enterprise WAN traffic, 50–60% of monthly hours are off-peak.
2. Backup window bursts. Many backup jobs are bandwidth-bound. Burst the EVC to a high tier from 11pm–3am during the backup window, then drop back. Pay full rate for four hours instead of all 720.
3. Cloud migration windows. Data center migrations to AWS or Azure are short, intense bursts. Schedule a 10 Gbps Datacenter Expansion EVC for the 48-hour migration window, then deprovision back to the steady-state tier.
4. Seasonal patterns. If your workload has known monthly or quarterly spikes (financial close, retail seasons, end-of-quarter reporting), schedule the EVC to spike for those windows ahead of time and drop afterward.
Manual scheduling through Lumen Connect is workable for a single EVC and a handful of changes. Once you have multiple EVCs and recurring schedules, an automated scheduler against the NaaS /modifyBandwidth endpoint is the only sustainable path.
The Apptifi EoD Cost Calculator
The interactive [EoD cost calculator at /features/ethernet-on-demand](/features/ethernet-on-demand) on apptifi.com is the fastest way to model your EoD costs before committing to a tier. It lets you:
- • Toggle between Customer Premise and Datacenter Expansion EVC types
- • Pick any of the 24 bandwidth tiers
- • Switch between Basic, Enhanced, and Dedicated CoS
- • Adjust the monthly active hours
- • See the resulting hourly and monthly cost update in real time
The calculator uses the same EoD pricing reference data shown above and reflects the published NaaS rate structure. It is free to use, requires no account, and runs entirely in your browser.
Getting Started with EoD Scheduling
If you have a Lumen NaaS account and an active EoD circuit, you can connect Apptifi and start scheduling tier changes in under 30 minutes. The same NaaS API client ID and client secret used for IoD circuits authenticates against EoD inventory — Apptifi auto-discovers your EVCs and shows their current tier, EVC type, and CoS in the inventory panel.
The Core plan covers unlimited EVCs, unlimited tier change events, the EoD cost calculator, sandbox mode, and Defender Plus integration — all at $50/month flat. For most enterprise WAN deployments, the first month's EoD savings exceed the annual subscription cost.
For a deeper walkthrough of how scheduling works in practice, see [Ethernet on Demand Scheduling Guide](/blog/ethernet-on-demand-scheduling-guide).