Carriers Converge at OIF Meeting; New Technical Projects Address Carrier Requirements and Integratable Tunable Laser Assembly.

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

FREMONT, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 30, 2003

The Optical Internetworking Forum's (OIF) final 2003 quarterly meeting drew a record eleven telecommunications carriers to Berlin. While at the meeting, attendees toured Deutsche Telekom facilities where they observed OIF Implementation Agreements (IAs) being tested and operating in real-time network situations.

"The Deutsche Telekom field trial is a perfect example of how carriers are progressing towards deploying OIF IAs in their networks," said Vishnu Shukla, Verizon, OIF board member. "The proximity of our meeting to the Deutsche Telekom facility provided a great opportunity for our members to see the results of their work in action."

Reflecting the growing influence of the OIF's carrier members, the Forum's Carrier Working Group (WG) unanimously voted to begin a new Carrier Requirements document related to Management Plane Support of Ethernet/SAN over SONET/SDH. This document will enable cost-effective integration of intelligent optical control plane-based networks into carriers' operations infrastructures. The requirements will employ NMS/EMS interfaces such as the Telemanagement Forum's TMF 814 specification.

"Transport of data signals formats over SONET/SDH networks is of paramount importance for carriers," said Hans-Martin Foisel, T-Systems Nova, OIF Carrier Working Group chair. "This document will support and provide guidance to the upcoming OIF activities in this field."

In other developments from the Berlin meeting, the OIF's Physical and Link Layer (PLL) WG began a new tunable laser project. This project will extend the pre-existing industry standard 300-pin MSA for 10 Gigabit Optical Transponders, to support tunable lasers. The benefit of this MSA, and tunable lasers in general, to system companies, service providers and their customers, is to simplify inventory management, enable faster introduction of wavelength-based services and reduce operational costs.

Board Members Re-Elected

For the 2003-2004 term, returning board member Joe Berthold, vice president of network architecture at CIENA Corp., was re-named president. In addition, directors elected to an additional term include Tom Afferton, division manager at AT&T Labs, who continues as OIF's treasurer and secretary; Marco Carugi, senior advisor, advanced technology, CTO office at Nortel Networks; and Doug Zuckerman, senior scientist at Telcordia Technologies.

About the OIF

Launched in April of 1998, the OIF is a non-profit organization with more than 150 international member companies, including many of the world's leading carriers and vendors. As the only industry group uniting representatives from data and optical 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 actively supports and extends the work of national and international standards bodies. Formal liaisons have been established with The ATM Forum, IEEE 802.3 HSSG, IETF, ITU-T Study Group 13, ITU-T Study Group 15, MEF, NPF, T1M1, T1X1, TMF and the XFP MSA Group. More information on the OIF can be found at www.oiforum.com.