Level 3 Communications Inc. (Omaha, NE) and Bell Communications Research (Morristown, NJ) announced the merger of their respective technical specifications for a new protocol designed to bridge between current circuit-based public switched telephone networks and emerging Internet protocol (IP) technology-based networks. The merged specification, called Media Gateway Control Protocol, represents a combination of the IP Device Control specification developed by a consortium formed by Level 3 and the Simple Gateway Control Protocol developed by Bellcore and Cisco Systems Inc. (San Jose, CA).