Archived Newsroom • Press Release |
|
ITU and MEF to cooperate on standards that advance on-demand
connectivity services
Standards to support growth of digital economy in hyper-connected world
Budapest, 12 October 2015 – ITU and MEF concluded an
agreement to advance the worldwide development and deployment of emerging
connectivity services – designed to be agile, assured, and orchestrated – in
addition to standardized CE 2.0 (Carrier Ethernet) services.
The Memorandum of Understanding was signed by the Director of the ITU
Standardization Bureau Chaesub Lee and MEF President Nan Chen on the eve of the
opening of ITU Telecom World 2015 in Budapest. The agreement focuses on
opportunities for mutual standards referencing for CE 2.0 and LSO (Lifecycle
Service Orchestration), standards compliance/certification and global education
as well as alignment in emerging areas, such as trust in the information
society, orchestration and virtualization, as well as 5G Cloud Access.
Areas of cooperation include:
- Joint steering committee. The ITU
Standardization Sector (ITU-T) and MEF will establish a Joint
Steering Committee composed of two representatives from each
organization that will supervise the overall implementation of
the collaboration.
- Leadership workshops. The two bodies
intend to organize periodic leadership workshops to focus on
specific aspects of proposed collaboration relating to the
adoption of ITU-T and MEF standards in the areas of Carrier
Ethernet and the next generation of agile, assured and
orchestrated connectivity services.
- Standards references and contributions.
The organizations intend to focus on enhancing contributions to
the ongoing work of relevant ITU-T Study Groups and maximizing
the MEF work that can be referenced by ITU-T documents. ITU-T
Study Groups expected to play leading roles in ITU-MEF
collaboration include:
-
Study Group 11 – protocols and test
specifications
-
Study Group 13 – future networks, including
cloud computing, mobile, and next-generation
networks
-
Study Group 15 – networks, technologies, and
infrastructures for transport, access, and home
- Certification and Conformance Testing. The
MEF and ITU-T intend to investigate collaborative
certification and conformance testing activities and promote the
availability of training and certification to maximize the
impact of the MEF Certified Professional programme. It is a
globally recognized, vendor-neutral certification programme
designed to ensure that organizations have a common baseline of
technical Carrier Ethernet skills across many job functions.
Both organizations see an opportunity to broaden the base of
expertise to additional ITU Member States with the goal of
promoting network-driven economic growth.
“This renewed commitment to cooperation between ITU and MEF is a very welcome
development,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “MEF offers valuable
support to ITU’s standardization of Carrier Ethernet, assuring the ICT industry
that well-coordinated standards development will drive the evolution of Carrier
Ethernet and the emergence of integrated fixed-mobile hybrid 5G networks.”
Nan Chen, President of the MEF, said, “MEF’s concept of ‘The Third Network’
– an agile, assured and orchestrated service enabled by LSO (Lifecycle Service
Orchestration) – describes a vision for the development and deployment of
connectivity services necessary to build infrastructure which can be leveraged
for economic opportunities that a hyper-connected world provides. Alongside
ITU-T, the MEF is defining the technologies that effectively makes for a level
playing field, bridges the standardization gaps, and fosters opportunities for
everyone to participate in the digital economy.”
“We see standardized Carrier Ethernet and standardized connectivity as a
strong basis on which ITU Member States can build a large part of their
sustainable economic growth over the coming decades,” said Chaesub Lee, Director
of ITU’s Standardization Bureau. “Rapidly emerging requirements in the arenas of
digital trust, Internet of Things, 5G and virtualization will be better met
through rapid alignment between ITU-T and the MEF, and this in turn will
translate into immediate benefits for the ITU-T membership along with more
effective long-term standardization.”
For more information, please contact:
Sanjay Acharya
Chief, Media Relations and Public Information, ITU
|
Hannah Whitrow
For MEF
Zonic Group PR
|
About ITU...
About the MEF
The MEF is the driving force behind the USD 80+ billion global market for
Carrier Ethernet services and technologies and the defining body for LSO
(Lifecycle Service Orchestration) standards that underpin emerging Third Network
services with CE 2.0, SDN, and NFV. An industry alliance consisting of nearly
220 member organizations based in 43 countries, the MEF operates through a
powerful collaborative framework of service providers, network solutions
suppliers, and other stakeholders to achieve CE 2.0 and LSO development and
globalization objectives. Visit www.mef.net for
more details.