Metro Ethernet Forum Notches Three Milestones

CEN Feature (Jul 19 2012) MEF

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   A decade after its first demo of Ethernet services at Supercomm, the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF) has passed the 200-member mark. It’s one of three recent milestones for an organization that some members say is as much the reason for Carrier Ethernet’s success as it is a beneficiary.

   “Even in today’s difficult economy, the market for Carrier Ethernet services and equipment continues to exhibit extremely healthy growth,” says Mark Durrett, marketing director at Overture Networks, an MEF member. “I don’t believe that remarkable feat would have been possible without the work of the MEF. The powerful combination of technical standards development and the marketing machine has helped establish the MEF as the model for all industry associations. 

   One recent example of that work is Carrier Ethernet 2.0 (CE 2.0), including educating service providers and vendors about how the new capabilities help them capitalize on skyrocketing cloud adoption.

   “CE 2.0 will play a critical role in the delivery of our new services to cloud and mobile providers,” Jarrett Appleby, COO of new member company CoreSite, said in an MEF press release about the milestones. “Our membership in the MEF is instrumental in making this all happen”.

   CoreSite isn’t the only company that’s bullish about CE 2.0.

   “Our survey research and discussions with many operators indicates that MEF’s CE2.0 initiative has been generally well received,” says Stan Hubbard, Heavy Reading senior analyst. “Operators have been particularly supportive of efforts to improve manageability and interconnection. But, not surprisingly, there’s still some work to be done to educate industry players about the details, make sure the CE 2.0 certification program gets off to a good start and then highlight CE 2.0’s additional benefits for enterprise end users.”

   If CE 1.0 is any guide, its predecessor should be widely adopted. In fact, that’s the MEF’s second major milestone: More than 150 service providers and equipment vendors certified to CE 1.0. The third milestone is that more than 300 people are now MEF Carrier Ethernet Certified Professionals (CECP). The organization expects the number of MEF-CECPs to triple by this time next year.

   Some members attribute the MEF’s longevity and success partly to its ability to identify and fill unmet needs.

   “The technical committee’s 100 percent focus on services has really helped to fill in the gaps left by organizations – such as the IEEE and ITU-T – that are writing the baseline Ethernet standards for more general use,” Durrett says. “In this way, the MEF has established the new lingua franca for the Carrier Ethernet industry.”

   MEF’s fiscal year ended June 30. The companies that joined in fiscal 2012 are Ascenty Telecom, Allstream, Sify Technologies Limited PT, Indosat, Tbk, UPC Broadband, Radius Telecoms, Lightower Fiber Networks, Lumos Networks, LSNetworks, Midcontinent Communications, Cbeyond, Sunrise Communications AG, Samsung SDS Co. Ltd., VNPT, Altera Corp., Carrier Ethernet Academy, Certes Networks, Coresite, Pulse Communications, Comba Telecom, NetInsight AB, Furukawa Network Solution Corporation and Advantech Wireless.

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