PHILADELPHIA -- Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA; CMCSK), the nation's leading provider of cable, entertainment and communications products and services, today announced its intention to form an Open Transport Initiative (OTI). The OTI's primary objective is to improve the interoperability between Optical and IP network layers and compatibility among multiple vendors' equipment within Comcast's network.

Comcast plans to work with Nortel and Cisco as the first vendors in this initiative.

The initial phase of the Open Transport Initiative will focus on providing operators, such as Comcast, greater network and bandwidth agility. The OTI plans to first identify and define a set of common interfaces, which will be used to integrate and manage Nortel DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) and Cisco IP equipment. Such open interfaces will help improve the vendors' ability to interoperate seamlessly within the same transport infrastructure, making it simpler to combine Optical and IP technologies on the same network.

"This collaboration is a natural and much-needed step in the evolution of network technology and the interoperability of multi-vendor networks," said Dave Fellows, Comcast's Chief Technology Officer. "Comcast is proud to work with Cisco and Nortel, because of their technology vision and their expertise in integrating large, diverse networks."

"Together with Cisco and Comcast, we plan to support the broader adoption of the common interfaces that result from this initiative," said Philippe Morin, General Manager, Optical Networks, Nortel. "This effort will enable the removal of operational barriers that currently exist between IP and optical networks and establish an intelligent, high bandwidth 'service on demand' network capable of delivering any service, over any path -- optical or copper -- with complete operational simplicity."

"Cisco has a long tradition of supporting industry standards and promoting industry-wide interoperability in order to accelerate innovation and customer adoption," said Tony Bates, senior vice president and general manager of the Carrier Core Multiservice business unit at Cisco. "Our enhancements to the Cisco CRS-1 product family -- including 10G DWDM interfaces, 40Gbps packet interconnect over 10G DWDM transport and control plane enhancements make this vision a reality. We believe there are significant CAPEX and OPEX benefits to be gained by tight integration of IP and photonic technologies in the network and are happy to work with Comcast and Nortel toward these goals."

Comcast Corp.

Cisco Systems Inc.

Nortel Networks Ltd.