BOCA RATON, Fla. -- Siemens Communications today announced that its Carrier Ethernet technology has been certified as compliant with specification 14 of the Metro Ethernet Forum (MEF), a non-profit organization chartered to help accelerate the worldwide adoption of carrier-class Ethernet networks and services. The MEF 14 standard covers traffic performance and bandwidth profile rate enforcement to ensure quality of service.

Parameter compliance with the specification helps ensure revenue-generating service level agreements (SLAs) in the residential and business sectors. The Siemens® SURPASS® Carrier Ethernet solution, with industry-leading traffic management, enables service providers to offer quality IPTV experiences to residential consumers and guaranteed SLA delivery for business services. For business customers, the certification helps foster easier migration from LL, FF and ATM to high-speed Ethernet-based services.

Traffic management certification of Carrier Ethernet services was conducted by the lometrix test laboratory, as mandated by the MEF. The MEF is made up of leading service providers, major incumbent local exchange carriers, top network equipment vendors, test equipment vendors and other prominent networking companies that share an interest in metro Ethernet.

Siemens’ SURPASS Carrier Ethernet switches – including the SURPASS hiD 6630, 6650 and 6670 – have so far passed all MEF certifications, doing so each time in the first round of certification. MEF certifications are confirmation of the quality of Siemens’ Carrier Ethernet solutions, which have been selected by major carriers such as T-Com, BT and Actel. In addition to compliance with the MEF 14 standard, Siemens’ newly designed Advanced Ethernet Package includes a sophisticated traffic management module enabling carriers to offer various revenue-generating services on a converged network.

“It is very satisfactory to see that a global vendor like Siemens has developed a solution that fits with the MEF 14 standard and hence raises carriers’ levels of services considerably,” said Bob Mandeville, president and CEO of lometrix.

Siemens Communications Group