A Montreal-based Ethernet carrier says it is the first in the county to pass a new standard set by an industry organization.
Fibrenoire, which sells fiber optic connectivity services over its network in the Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec City areas, said two of its services have passed the CE 2.0 standard set by the Metro Ethernet Forum.
The forum is an industry group that promotes carrier Ethernet.
Jean-Francoise Levesque, Fibrenoire’s chief technology officer, said the provider has passed the CE 2.0 standard for E-Line and E-Access services. (It doesn’t sell two other carrier Ethernet services, E-Tree and E-LAN. There are two versions of each service, port-based or VLAN-based. The MEF has a standard for each.).
To date only nine service providers in the world have achieved CE 2.0 certifications.
Four other Canadian carriers are members of the MEF — BCE Inc.’s Bell Canada, Rogers Communications Inc., Telus Corp. and Shaw Communications. They have passed the CE 1.0 standard for a number of services.
The MEF says CE 2.0 supports multiple classes of service plus manageability across interconnected provider networks – unlike the standardized CE 1.0 services delivered over a single provider’s network.
“The certification in general will help fast-track the adoption of carrier Ethernet for WAN connectivity,” Levesque said in an interview. “A lot of companies are still using some TDM (time-division multiplexing) services. Carrier Ethernet will be easier to manage and cheaper for customers.
“For Fibrenoire, I think our customers that more and more will require to have certified services to make sure that (the carrier) meets all the criteria.”