A new technology advisory council (tac) was recently formed by several communications industry

A new technology advisory council (tac) was recently formed by several communications industry hardware and software companies with a charter to develop a set of technical standards to bridge current circuit-based public switched telephone networks to emerging Internet protocol-based networks. The tac`s founding members include 3Com Corp. (Santa Clara, CA); Alcatel Telecom (Dallas, TX); Ascend Communications Inc. (Alameda, CA); Cisco Systems Inc. (San Jose, CA); Ericsson (Stockholm); Level 3 Communications Inc. (Omaha, NE); Lucent Technologies (Murray Hill, NJ); Nortel (Brampton, ON, Canada); Selsius Systems (Dallas, TX); Stratus Computer Inc. (Marlboro, MA); Tekelec (Calabasas, CA); and Vertical Networks (Sunnyvale, CA).