The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF), a non-profit organization uniting representatives from packet and voice networks, announced that it has created a Carrier Working Group to foster and address carrier-specific technical recommendations. Approved by the membership at its January 31, 2001 quarterly meeting, the new working group will provide a technical forum for OIF's growing roster of carrier members. The move is indicative of the strong interest among carriers in working to establish standards that will benefit the entire industry.
"Our carrier members have been active participants in our working groups," said Adam Dunstan, president of OIF. "The establishment of a formal working group is recognition of their key role in developing relevant interoperability agreements for next-generation optical networks."
In May 2000, OIF formed an ad hoc group of carrier companies to assist in the development of the User Network Interface (UNI) 1.0. The Carrier group's document, titled "Carrier Optical Services Framework and Associated Requirements for UNI," is intended to provide a framework and high-level requirements to guide OIF's work on the UNI 1.0 technical specification. The creation of a formal working group will allow the Carrier company members to take on additional projects within OIF.
OIF elected John Strand, consultant at AT&T as chairman of the Carrier Working Group; Jim Jones, senior systems engineer in Intelligent Optical Networks at Alcatel as chairman of the Architecture Working Group; and Doug Zuckerman, senior research scientist in the Broadband Networking Research Department at Telcordia Technologies as chairman of the OAM&P Working Group. In addition, Tom Afferton, district manager for Advanced Transport Technology and Architect Planning at AT&T has joined the Board of Directors representing the carrier companies that participate in the forum.
About the OIF:
Launched in April of 1998, the OIF is a non-profit organization with 325 member companies to date, including carriers and vendors. As the only industry group uniting representatives from packet and voice networks, the OIF helps advance the standards and methods of optical networks. OIF's purpose is to accelerate the deployment of interoperable, cost-effective and robust optical internetworks and their associated technologies. Optical internetworks are data networks composed of routers and data switches interconnected by optical networking elements. With the goal of promoting worldwide compatibility of optical internetworking products, the OIF supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Formal liaisons have been established with The ATM Forum, IEEE 802.3 HSSG and the IETF. For more information on the OIF, visit www.oiforum.com.