As defined by the
MEF Marketing committee the key characteristics of an Ethernet service include: (1)
Support for multiple standardized services including TDM, (2) Quality of Service (QoS),
(3) Reliability, (4)Management including Operations and Administration, (5) Scalability.
These were defined because carriers needed these qualities and they were, for the
most part, absent from Ethernet equipment as it evolved in the Enterprise market. 100
years of evolution of service provider networks had proven the value of these qualities.
However, the use of Ethernet in Enterprise LANs did not need the rigorous performance
required of service providers. Many vendors began to label their equipment
???carrier-class???, yet this term had little meaning until the MEF began to define the
meaning of Ethernet services.
Support for Multiple Standardized Services Including TDM Enterprise Ethernet
switches and routers had few requirements to interface with circuits or cross connect
circuits. Occasionally, routers had a WAN port to pass packet traffic to a WAN circuit
but that was the extent of their support. Ethernet switches and routers are designed
for packet traffic.
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