The Resilient Packet Ring Alliance, an industry advocacy group promoting resilient packet ring (RPR) technology and its standardization by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (New York City) (IEEE), announced that the IEEE 802.17 RPR working group has approved the release of version 2.0 of the draft RPR standard for working group ballot, meeting a major milestone in the standards process.
The advancement of the IEEE 802.17 draft RPR standard to working group ballot signifies a general vote of confidence from the membership that the draft is mature enough to justify taking a formal vote. Up to this point, comments were gathered and addressed, but no votes were taken on the suitability of the entire draft text. With this working group ballot, members will approve or disapprove the draft in its current form.
Disapproving voters indicate specific areas of improvement needed in the draft and in so doing indicate their willingness to approve the draft if these areas are addressed satisfactorily. The working group ballot requires a 75% approval of the voting members before the next stage can be undertaken: a sponsor ballot whereby a broad community of users and vendors of the technology will review the draft. The sponsor ballot is expected in late spring of 2003, with final approval envisioned later that year.
"After working diligently over the past months, we are very proud that the working group has met this deadline as planned," said Robert Love, president of the RPR Alliance and vice chair of the IEEE 802.17 working group. "The working group will continue to provide valuable comments that will improve the RPR draft as we move to finalize the text. The RPR standard will provide carriers a highly resilient and cost-effective metro transport solution with the interoperability they demand."
"Carriers, cable providers, as well as large enterprises have shown increasing interest in RPR transport solutions for carrying Ethernet services," said John Hawkins, chair of the RPR Alliance and senior marketing manager for Optical Ethernet at Nortel Networks. "As customers budget for 2003 and beyond, they are evaluating RPR solutions both technically and economically. RPR presents a strong business case in terms of capital and operation expenditures, both of which are clearly vital to carriers, providers, and corporate customers today."
In addition, Infineon Technologies has upgraded its membership in the RPR Alliance, joining Cisco Systems, Corrigent Systems, Lantern Communications, Mindspeed Technologies, and Nortel Networks as principal members.
For more information on the RPR Alliance, visit the group's website at www.rpralliance.org.