The Standardization Efforts While the standardization efforts have made significant
headway, this is a work in progress and still very much in the early stages. Functionalities
such as Network to Network Interface (NNI)??”which defines the handoff between two
Service Providers and is a key requirement for wholesale Carrier Ethernet services or
when the delivery infrastructure is leased from one or more network operators??”needs
to be formally defined before Carrier Ethernet will be deployed more aggressively in
the WAN. This effort is still underway at the standards bodies.
Recent Industry Response to Challenges
Given the economic and competitive attractiveness of Carrier Ethernet services, the
industry has naturally embarked on addressing some of the challenges noted above.
96 Chapter 2
Two specific ones??”Intelligent Demarcation and the MEF Certification Program, are
discussed here, and illustrate the considerable and effective effort in this regard.
Intelligent Ethernet Demarcation
One industry response to enabling the acceleration of Carrier Ethernet has been to
introduce a new class of intelligent Ethernet demarcation devices (EDDs).
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