Press Releases

Meriton Networks Joins Carrier Ethernet Ecosystem

Consortium Will Leverage Meriton’s Carrier Ethernet Transport Expertise To Further its Mission of Interoperable Carrier Ethernet Solutions

Ottawa, Canada – June 19, 2007

Meriton Networks, a leader in emerging Carrier Ethernet Transport (CET) solutions, today announced that it has joined the new Carrier Ethernet Ecosystem. Initiated by Nortel and comprising eight charter members including Meriton, the ecosystem is a partnering framework designed to ensure the interoperability of Provider Backbone Transport (PBT)-enabled Carrier Ethernet solutions worldwide, thereby helping reduce the costs and complexity of carriers' next-generation communications infrastructures.

In February of this year, Meriton announced its innovative CET strategy, which integrates three networking capabilities (Wavelength, Sub-Wavelength and PBT Tunnel Switching) to enable a converged optical-Ethernet transport solution. CET combines the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of native Ethernet with the reliability and power of WDM to deliver unparalleled flexibility, efficiency and cost savings -- particularly for interconnecting Gigabit Ethernet.

"The interest in PBT has shifted from widespread curiosity to serious evaluation among innovative network operators worldwide," said Ken Davison, vice president of marketing and business development for Meriton Networks. "As carriers develop their networks to best support advanced, high-bandwidth services, the transport infrastructure must be given key consideration. Given our strong heritage in optical transport and data networking systems, we look forward to working with Nortel and other Ecosystem members to achieve interoperability at the PBT level. We believe that CET is the best transport architecture for IP-based next-generation networks, and PBT is an important component of CET."

"The Carrier Ethernet Ecosystem promises to fast-track the acceptance of PBT-enabled network deployments, and we look forward to leveraging Meriton's distinctive expertise in transport infrastructure as we pursue the Ecosystem's mission," said Michael Adams, vice president, Metro Ethernet architecture, Nortel.

As part of the ecosystem, member partners will develop and pre-test solutions, culminating in certification that their respective solutions meet compatibility and interoperability standards for PBT-based networks.