FREMONT, Calif. -- The Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance (EFMA) today announced that the IEEE 802.3ah EFM Task Force has reached consensus on a complete set of baseline technical proposals that will provide the foundation of the Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM) standard. Adoption of the baseline proposals is the third major milestone in the IEEE standardization process and provides the basis upon which the editors will now write the first draft of the EFM standard. "This milestone marks significant consensus on critical issues and puts us on a path for the first draft of the specification to be completed in September 2002," said Bruce Tolley, Vice President of Technology for the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance and Manager of Emerging Technologies for Cisco's Gigabit Systems Business Unit. "A successful standard process will be the key driving factor in the development of low-cost, interoperable Ethernet broadband access equipment from multiple vendors, and will enable the deployment of Ethernet broadband services in public subscriber networks." During last week's IEEE 802 meeting, held July 7-11 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, over 100 members of the IEEE 802.3ah EFM Task Force met to discuss and agree upon a detailed set of technical proposals that will outline the specifics of the specification. This is the third major milestone in the EFM standard process. The previous milestones include the formation of a Study Group in November of 2000 and the approval of a PAR (Project Authorization Request) during Q3 2001. The EFM draft standard will encompass all the technical elements necessary for broadband Ethernet: including Physical Layer specifications for operation over copper, fiber point-to-point, fiber point-to-multi-point, and a common mechanism for operation administration and maintenance (OAM), enabling deployment of broadband services to both business and residential users. During last week's meeting the Task Force agreed to widen the EFM application space by introducing a long-reach objective for copper access in response to strong demand from major service providers. Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance (EFMA) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE)