MEF’s rebrand to the Mplify Alliance illustrates the growing diversity of its membership community

Kevin Vachon, Chief Operating Officer of Mplify, said the brand rename reflects the evolving service landscape since the organization launched in 2001 with a focus on Metro Ethernet.

“At the end of the day, we still have a lot of people see us as an Ethernet play, even though we’re much more than that,” he said. “We felt it was time to move away from the Metro Ethernet limitation because we have executed a broader mission of work with orchestration, automation, and other service types, so it’s a broader mission.”

With the organization now in transition, the Mplify logo will continue to feature the MEF name.

Additionally, Mplify will continue the foundational work that has positioned MEF as a defining force in standardizing Carrier Ethernet (CE) with MEF 3.0 CE-certified services. All existing programs, memberships, and initiatives will continue under the Mplify brand.

“We like the retention of the letter M because it gives us a connection to the past,” Vachon said. “We’re going to use this logo, which says formerly MEF, because it gives us the association with MEF and means a lot of things like amplify, specify, and certify.”

Raising the NaaS bar

While the former MEF was instrumental in enabling Ethernet standards, it recognized that the networking service industry is transitioning to a more Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) model.

As a cloud computing model, NaaS relies on a third-party provider to deliver network infrastructure and services over the internet, allowing businesses to access and manage their networks without owning or maintaining physical hardware. 

Momentum around NaaS continues to ramp. A recent Business Research report forecasts that the NaaS market will reach $33 billion by 2025, reflecting a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 28.4%.

The research firm stated that the considerable growth during the historic period can be attributed to the growing need for scalable solutions, cost-effectiveness, and the rise in remote working.

MEF’s transition also coincides with the growing adoption of NaaS. Part of its inspiration to pivot to a new name came during a meeting with a former MEF chairman, who suggested that the organization needed to do a better job of wrapping up its activities to demonstrate value to the entire industry.

“We’re moving towards NaaS over time,” Vachon said. “What MEF is delivering is all these standards for services, certification and automation with API, which are all building blocks for NaaS that allow members to take off-the-shelf elements and build out the NaaS offerings.”  

These elements are relevant not only to providers like Lumen, which has been sharpening their focus on the enterprise side, but also to managed service providers (MSPs).

Vachon said the former MEF looked to establish common elements related to NaaS. “We started to bring NaaS more into our story,” he said. “There was no association that was dedicated to moving NaaS forward, so we took a leadership position with our Global NaaS event and we issued multiple blueprints.”

Evolving automation

With its LSO Lifecycle Service Orchestration (LSO), Mplify’s members have built a standardized reference architecture and framework for enabling end-to-end business and operational automation and orchestration across multiple provider networks.

There are many benefits of network automation. Network automation is the process of using software to automate the configuration, management, testing, deployment, and operation of both physical and virtual network devices. 

And while the notion of network automation could enable a range of more exotic elements over time, the near-term value will be in enhancing day-to-day operations, such as ordering services.

“There are lots of lofty things being talked about, but ordering and provisioning services is the bread-and-butter stuff going on right now,” Vachon said. “It’s still on-demand carrier Ethernet demand and automating cross-connects.”

Another key area of growth is wavelength services. Vertical Systems Group noted in its Year-end 2024 U.S. Wavelength Services LEADERBOARD that the U.S. installed base of Wavelength circuits grew almost eight percent in 2024 as enterprises, hyperscalers, and service providers added more power and bandwidth to support soaring AI traffic.

One of the ongoing trends in the wavelength segment is the increasing demand for 100G and 400G speed services. The research firm noted that customer demand for 400 Gbps wavelength services is increasing, driven by hyperscalers, data center connectivity providers, cloud providers, and enterprises with high data transfer requirements.

Vachon said that more organizations are looking to automate their purchasing of wavelength services.

“Being able to buy wavelengths services through an API wasn’t a big deal three years ago, but if you look at the Layer 1 service growth and be aggressive, it’s a must-have,” he said.

Likewise, on the wholesale services side, operators are pitching new offerings. Vachon said wholesale providers “are trying to position themselves in the NaaS community to accommodate more forward-looking retail providers who are ready to do on-demand services.”

Diversifying membership 

While service providers and vendors built the foundation of what became the MEF, the Mplify Alliance will also focus on the need to pivot towards more inclusive membership.  

When the former MEF began to attract vendors and providers involved in emerging orchestration and automation functions, it realized it had to broaden its appeal to companies outside the Ethernet domain.

“We were well recognized as doing a great job bringing the vendors and providers together, and we’ve evolved that community as we got into orchestration with APIs,” Vachon said. “Because it’s a different community of players you need, you need to make sure that your brand does not limit you to attract those players.”  

But orchestration providers were only one part of the new puzzle to enhance their membership ranks.

As Mplify has expanded its reach, the organization has also looked to step outside of the larger service provider and vendor domains by attracting regional service providers and, increasingly, enterprises.

In 2024, Mplify introduced a new membership structure, including a category for small operators. Regional providers could pay $5,000 to become a member and get access to their assets.

“As we started to pivot to Network as a Service (NaaS) and the automation landscape, which would transpire over time, we wanted to make sure that as smaller operators got into the automation game, we were inclusive of them,” Vachon said.

He added that “we want to be inclusive and not be some club of Tier 2s and Tier 1s, so it’s just a matter of us getting that story out.”

Attracting enterprises

Another key target for Mplify is to attract enterprises via its emphasis on Network as a Service (NaaS).

Vachon said that working with enterprises shows the evolution of the community within which it works.

“It has been fun to watch the evolution of the community, and we see ourselves as a community,” he said. “We see ourselves as a platform of people and companies that have a track record in enabling collaboration.”

During its Global NaaS event last fall, Mplify established its Enterprise Leadership Council (ELC), comprising senior executives (CxOs) from mid-to-large enterprises.

The ELC will help the organization deliver what it claims is “meaningful value for enterprises” by providing actionable ideas and knowledge to assist in executing cloud, network infrastructure, and security projects.

MEF’s new membership structure offers options for the vast array of organizations shaping the NaaS ecosystem, from end-user enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs) to hyperscalers, SaaS providers, and network and security solutions providers.

Today, the ELC has 14 enterprise members.

The benefits of large enterprises, such as the corporate side of Google, could be to simplify network service ordering and turn-up. Google, for one, purchases services from over 200 providers.

“Enterprises like Google say, I don’t want to buy all of this stuff manually and have different portals for every carrier,” Vachon said. “They stumbled upon our organization and said this solves problems we have.”

While Vachon could not share specific details yet, he said Mplify is “developing standards purely driven by enterprises, so that community will grow over time.”  

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