[March 16, 2004] MULTISERVICE SWITCHING FORUM AND MPLS & FRAME RELAY ALLIANCE WILL TEAM ON 2004 TEST EVENTS MULTISERVICE SWITCHING FORUM AND MPLS & FRAME RELAY ALLIANCE WILL TEAM ON 2004 TEST EVENTS Collaboration Brings Groups Together for SUPERCOMM and GMI 2004 FREMONT, Calif. – March 17, 2004 - The Multiservice Switching Forum (MSF) and the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance announced today that the organizations have agreed to collaborate on two interoperability test events in 2004. The agreement calls for joint technical work on an MPLS and Frame Relay demonstration at SUPERCOMM in June, as well as at the MSF’s Global MSF Interoperability (GMI 2004) event in October. “This is an important development for service providers and end users,” said Tom Nolle, president of CIMI Corporation, a Voorhees NJ consulting firm. “MSF has a unique systemic perspective on service switching and service management, and the MPLS & FR Alliance are the premier body in both the MPLS space and in the migration of legacy data services to IP. Their cooperation in an interoperability event insures that the event will fully address the issues in the critical VoIP, VPN, and VPLS markets, and it’s the kind of inter-body cooperation that we need more of from the standards community.” Under the new agreement, the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance will lead the effort at SUPERCOMM, a live, multi-vendor demonstration of QoS-enabled Layer 2&3 VPNs and VPLS services on a MPLS core network. MSF members will be invited to participate in the SUPERCOMM event, with a particular focus on work to deliver VoIP services and applications over an MPLS network. The MSF will continue to lead the GMI 2004 event, which will culminate in a global extended test event conducted simultaneously in Europe, North America and Asia. Hosted by BT, KT, NTT and Qwest, GMI 2004 is scheduled for October 2004 and will showcase a deployable Next Generation carrier-scale telephony network based on an IP core, with services, applications and advanced QoS and security. MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance members will be invited to participate in GMI 2004, focusing on the creation of a traffic-engineered MPLS network that will run MSF QoS-based applications and services. “This agreement will benefit the members of both organizations,” said Andrew Malis, chairman and president of the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance. “By pooling our technical resources, we will strengthen both events and open fresh lines of communication between our members.” “This partnership reflects the real-world environment in the telecom industry, specifically building out multi-vendor implementations for global networks that carry voice, data and video,” said Roger Ward, president of the Multiservice Switching Forum. “The result of these enhanced interoperability events will be that carriers can accelerate deployment of their next generation architectures with confidence.” Companies interested in participating in the SUPERCOMM demonstration should contact Mike Parket, [email protected]. Companies interested in participating in GMI 2004 should contact Julianne Fitzpatrick, [email protected], or visit www.gmi2004.com for details. About the Multiservice Switching Forum The Multiservice Switching Forum (MSF) is a global association of service providers and system suppliers committed to developing and promoting open-architecture, multiservice switching systems. Founded in 1998, the MSF is an open-membership organization comprised of the world’s leading telecommunications companies. The MSF’s activities include developing implementation agreements, promoting worldwide compatibility and interoperability, and encouraging input to appropriate national and international standards bodies. For more information about the MSF and its members, visit the MSF web site at http://www.msforum.org/. About the MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance The MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance is an international industry organization that is advancing the recognition and acceptance of MPLS and Frame Relay technologies in the global telecom industry. The Alliance is driving worldwide deployment of multi-vendor MPLS and Frame Relay networks, applications and services, through interoperability initiatives, implementation agreements, and educational and marketing resources and programs. The Alliance currently has more than 50 members. For a complete list of members, go to http://www.mplsforum.org/about/members.shtml. For Alliance membership information please contact Alexa Morris, executive director, at (510) 608-5914 or via e-mail at [email protected]. Additional information about The MPLS & Frame Relay Alliance is available online at http://www.mplsforum.org/. ### [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]