April 12, 2005 Irvine, CA -- The Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), a global industry alliance of approximately 70 organizations including telecommunications service providers, network equipment and software manufacturers, semiconductors vendors, and testing organizations, today announced the launch of its certification program to support what it calls the explosive demand for incipient "Carrier Ethernet" services.
The forum contends that the Internet's next generation of "Carrier Ethernet" standard-based technology will deliver business connectivity at tens of gigabits per second, as well as broadcast-quality video on demand, and other communications. According to the forum, the Carrier Ethernet standard defines native Ethernet packet access to the Internet, as well as the increasing penetration of wireless networks. The forum says that the standard presents a direct challenge to traditional SONET telephony infrastructures, while promising wide area networking scalable beyond 10 Gbit/sec, through the use of ubiquitous Ethernet technology.
"When the MEF began, our challenge was to release Ethernet from the confines of the local area network. Our focus on the metropolitan network has been so successful that people no longer think in terms of Ethernet's limitations," explains Nan Chen, president of the MEF. "Instead they ask us, 'what will it do next?' Carrier Ethernet is our answer, in response to overwhelming demand for the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of Ethernet services across the WAN."
The forum says its commitment to the new standard is underlined by the simultaneous launch of the certification program to accelerate the delivery of industry-standard products and services to the end user. The program will initially allow member companies to certify that their products meet international Carrier Ethernet service standards as detailed in MEF specifications. Certification will later become available to non-members from a growing number of laboratories around the world, and will embrace services as well as equipment.
The forum's stated mission is to accelerate the worldwide adoption of carrier-class Ethernet networks and services by developing technical specifications and implementation agreements to promote the interoperability and global deployment of the technology.
"The MEF Certification Program will accelerate the adoption of Carrier Ethernet by helping service providers evaluate the equipment of various vendors, and makes it easier to provide the key features of Carrier Ethernet: rapid service creation, smooth scalability to 10 Gbit/sec, end-to-end protection, robust service level agreements, and flexible support for voice, Internet, and multicast traffic," explains Ron Young, co-founder and board member of the MEF, and founder of Met-Net Communications.
"The MEF Certification Program can reduce the resources service providers must commit to designing and running tests. From the vendors' perspective, a single certificate can reduce the time and cost of conformance testing and, ultimately, accelerate the deployment of new products," adds Eric Puetz, MEF board member and executive director of broadband switching for SBC Laboratories. "Once the program extends to services, it'll smooth the adoption of Carrier Ethernet by large enterprise customers who can rely upon certified conformance between metropolitan and global service providers."
The program's developmental phase will be led by Iometrix, and open to MEF members whose equipment meets MEF requirements for E-Line (point to point) and E-LAN (multipoint) services. The results for companies submitting their equipment for testing by June 9, 2005 will be announced in September 2005 at the Carrier Ethernet World Congress in Berlin, Germany.