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Metro Ethernet Forum, an industry organization devoted to speeding up adoption of carrier-class Ethernet networks and services, announced Tuesday the launch of a new certification program, MEF 14, designed to verify the quality and performance of Ethernet services. The organization also announced the first 19 carriers to pass the new MEF 14 standards.

 

During a press conference Tuesday morning, several high-level Metro Ethernet Forum (News - Alert) members emphasized the importance of the MEF 14 certification process as a way to ensure that Ethernet delivers on its performance promises. Previous certifications focused only on correct Ethernet functionality rather than quality of service.

 

“Service assurance has never been validated industry-wide and in a standards-based way,” noted Bob Mandeville, president and founder of Iometrix (News - Alert) (the company responsible for MEF 14 conformance testing), during the press conference.

 

The first round of MEF 14 certifications involved 172 test cases to verify three types of Ethernet services: EPL (Ethernet private line), EVPL and E-LAN. Testing took place over a three-month period, day and night, on an international scale. This testing checked the performance of varying circuit sizes—from very short, high-bandwidth, metro-area circuits to those literally spanning the globe.

 

“The goal, from the start, was to make sure that the criteria established for carrier Ethernet would be based on one-way metrics,” Mandeville explained during the press conference. “This is the only way that anyone can determine whether a network is capable of going beyond just data transport and move into the world of voice transport and real-time video transport.”

 

Extremely aggressive objectives were developed, based on a mathematical model of optimal network performance, and Mandeville said the results were unexpected.

 

“The performance that we saw and that we measured was, to me, a big surprise,” he said. “I didn’t think that the performance that we measured would match the very, very strict criteria that we put in place.”

 

In addition to the official testing, Metro Ethernet Forum conducted some additional measurements to get a better sense of carrier Ethernet capabilities for delivering triple play services. Here, too, the news was good.

 

“The very, very tight loss measurements we saw show that carrier Ethernet is up to the task,” Mandeville said.

 

This focus on Ethernet for delivering real-time, triple play services shows just how far the technology has come in the past few years.

 

“One of the things we’ve seen at Verizon (News - Alert) over the past three to four years is the steady evolution of how our customers are using Ethernet services,” said Mike Tighe, chairman of Metro Ethernet Forum and executive director of business product strategy at Verizon, during the press conference. “At the beginning, it was just large bandwidth type applications, file transfers. Increasingly, they’re using carrier Ethernet for their mission-critical applications. They’re using it to support VoIP, videoconferencing, and ERP applications.”

 

Tighe said this shift is the motivation behind the MEF 14 certification—making sure that service and equipment manufacturers are offering solutions capable of meeting demands from high-bandwidth, real-time applications.

 

Brian Fabiano, senior vice president of network services at Optimum (News - Alert) Lightpath, added that MEF 14 is helping providers ensure they’re meeting market demands and preparing for future opportunities.

 

“The next big opportunity in the MSO space is the commercial services market,” Fabiano said. “Customers are accustomed to very strict, high-performing, reliable network infrastructures. Now, moving to Metro Ethernet, they’re expecting the same level of performance. We see that the MEF certifications are critical in instilling that confidence in our customers.”

 

Fabiano said that Metro Ethernet Forum certification also helps Optimum Lightpath create new products and services by differentiating its offerings.

 

Tighe added that MEF 14 certification for Ethernet equipment (rather than just services) is important, too.

 

“As we create carrier Ethernet services that need to support the requirement of real-time communications and mission-critical applications, the vendor certification gives us a lot of comfort that, when we implement a service, the underlying equipment will support the stringent requirements of these types of applications,” Tighe said.

 

MEF 14 certification plays an important role in interoperability, as well, Tighe said. And, without interoperability, providers won’t be able to realize the true cost benefits of Ethernet. Especially in the MSO space, customers are becoming more aware of Metro Ethernet Forum’s certification, and now expect providers to conform to the organization’s standards.

 

The first 19 companies to achieve MEF 14 ‘Abstract Test Suite for Traffic Management’ certification are: AT&T, COLT, Embarq (News - Alert), Neon, NTL Telewest, Optimum Lightpath, RCN, Swisscom, Time Warner Cable, Verizon and VSNL International. Each of these companies will receive their official certifications during an awards ceremony Wednesday, June 20, 2007, at the NXTComm show in Chicago.