RPR Moves Towards Standard

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.17(tm) RPR Working Group has moved to the final stages of standardization of the RPR MAC, announced the Resilient Packet Ring Alliance, an industry advocacy group promoting RPR technology and its standardization by IEEE. The Working Group and the IEEE 802 LAN/MAN Standards Executive Committee approved forwarding the RPR draft standard for Sponsor Ballot, the penultimate step in the standardization process.

"The members of the RPR Alliance congratulate the IEEE 802.17 Working Group for achieving this important milestone for RPR," said John Hawkins, chair of the RPR Alliance and senior marketing manager of Optical Ethernet for Nortel Networks. "The Working Group has worked diligently for more than two years to create an RPR standard that meets the needs of today's metro networks. We look forward to the continued success of the Working Group to achieve a final RPR standard early next year."

"As the telecom industry continues its recovery, carriers are increasingly considering standardized RPR a cost-effective solution for the delivery of carrier-class voice, data, and video over existing SONET/SDH rings," said Martin Green, vice president of marketing for the RPR Alliance and product manager at Cisco Systems. "This move to Sponsor Ballot allows carriers to have full confidence in RPR as a standardized technology and to begin evaluating and testing the growing roster of RPR chipsets and systems."

Members of the 802 LAN/MAN Standards Committee, who sponsor the work of the 802.17 Working Group, will review the draft standard version 3.0 and submit comments in time for an interim meeting to be held in January in Vancouver, BC. Several such "comment periods" will be conducted until the required 75% approval rate is achieved, at which point the draft standard will be forwarded to the final stage of standardization, approval by the IEEE Standards Board Standards Review Committee. The fully ratified IEEE 802.17 RPR Standard is expected to be published in mid-2004.

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. (IEEE)

The RPR Alliance