Optical Internetworking Forum Broadens Focus of Technical Work

FREMONT, Calif., May 15 -- Following its May 1-3 quarterly meeting in Paris, the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) announced that it has moved to broaden the focus of its technical efforts beyond the User Network Interface (UNI) 1.0 specification. While the OIF continues to refine UNI 1.0, it has begun to develop different versions of electrical interface solutions to address the System Packet Interface-5 (SPI-5), SERDES-Framer Interface-5 (SFI-5) and Very Short Reach (VSR) for the OC-768/STM-256 technical specifications.
In other news from its quarterly meeting, the OIF appointed Rick Barry, Chief Technical Officer of Sycamore Networks, and John McDonough, Technology Standards Manager of Cisco Systems, as OIF board members.
"More than a third of our efforts in Paris were focused on work other than the UNI 1.0 specification," said Adam Dunstan, OIF president. "That marks a substantial shift from 2000, when we really concentrated most of our work on UNI 1.0. It is important that the OIF continues to address all facets of the network to meet the needs of our broad based membership."