20 August 2003 Newport Beach, CA Lightwave -- The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) reports after its quarterly membership meeting earlier this month that "solid progress" has been made in defining industry standards for metro Ethernet services. The MEF also announced the addition of eight new members and an expanded board of directors.
In order to achieve the MEF's mission of accelerating the adoption of metro Ethernet in metro networks worldwide, the organization is working to define industry standards for metro Ethernet services. The first phase of Metro Ethernet Service Definitions comprises three major specifications: Ethernet Services Model, Ethernet Services Definitions, and Ethernet Traffic Management. Other advancing pieces of work such as UNI and Protection requirements are also on the docket. The MEF expects this framework will advance the adoption of metro Ethernet by allowing for standardized service definitions, implementation parameters, and attributes and network interfaces.
During the MEF quarterly membership meeting held in Denver August 5-7, the Metro Ethernet Services Model document advanced to the letter ballot stage. Once a document reaches the letter ballot stage it is essentially complete, needing only a final vote to make it officially approved. The Ethernet Services Definitions specification is expected to move to letter ballot at the October 2003 MEF Technical Committee meeting. The Ethernet Traffic Management specification could move to letter ballot by the January 2004 MEF Technical Committee meeting.
Meanwhile, the MEF has accepted eight new members since June: Tellabs, Foundry Networks, Scientific-Atlanta, Marconi Communications, Ensemble, Transwitch, Axerra Networks, and ADVA Optical.
"Metro Ethernet services and networks are inevitable in service provider networks worldwide, and this is reflected in the new MEF members and expansion of the MEF board," stated Michael Howard, principal analyst at Infonetics Research. "It is important for customers, providers, and manufacturers to have clear standards for services, and carrier class technology to support these services. It is heartening to see service providers and manufacturers rolling up their sleeves together to accomplish this task."
Finally, MEF members created two new board member positions to reflect the growth of the organization, increasing the number of board of directors to 11 representatives. As the MEF enters its third year, its newly appointed board members include Board Chairman Mark Fishburn, vice president of technical strategy at Spirent Communications. Nan Chen, vice president of corporate/product marketing for Atrica, will continue serving as MEF President. Gary Southwell, vice president of marketing at Internet Photonics, was appointed as Board Secretary. Dave Senior, vice president of new technology introduction at Alcatel Fixed Networks Division, will serve the MEF as Board Treasurer. Mark Whalley, senior product manager at Agilent, returns as a member of the board of directors as well as being MEF Marketing Committee Co-chair. Rounding out the board of directors are Paul Bottorff, director of switching architecture, ATI at Nortel Networks and MEF Technical Committee Co-chair; Ron Young, founder and CEO of MetNet Communications; Bob Klessig, director of engineering at Cisco and MEF Technical Committee Co-chair; Ralph Ballart, vice president of broadband infrastructure and services at SBC Labs; and newcomers Gabriel Sidhom, vice president of business development of France Telecom R&D, and Rich Williams, director of marketing & business development at Hatteras Networks.
"We are looking forward to continuing the momentum that the MEF board officers and members have been able to achieve in creating this leading industry forum," said Fishburn. "A key strength and differentiator of the MEF is the role the leading service providers play in the development of standards that will enable them to mass-market Ethernet services with confidence to an eager enterprise market. We look forward to the input and involvement of our new members as we see the coming year as pivotal in the development of the standards that will reshape the economics of metro networking."