Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) members have completed a meeting where they approved the first in a planned series of agreements addressing the interfaces for packet and cell transfer in OC-768, 40 Gbps applications like OC-768 ATM and Packet-over-SONET/SDH (POS).
More than 300 OIFers met in San Diego at the end of January on the new specifications, officials said.
An agreement on the System Packet Interface Level 5 (SPI-5) builds on the previously approved OIF SPI specifications (SPI-3 for 2.5 Gbps and SPI-4 for 10 Gbps), providing guidelines for the interaction between physical layer and link layer devices.
"The approval of SPI-5 is another milestone among the OIF's technical efforts," said Sid Chaudhuri, OIF president, in a statement. "And the strong turnout for our quarterly meeting signals very strong support for the OIF within the optical networking industry."
The SPI-5 spec is used for 40 Gbps applications, such as OC-768 ATM and Packet over SONET/SDH (POS). SPI-5 will allow system vendors to use interoperable components from multiple suppliers leading to a higher level of competition and lower system costs.
Developed by the group's Physical Link Layer Working Group, OIF said the chip-to-chip and module-to-module multi-vendor interoperability made possible by SPI-5 will stimulate demand for 40 Gbps systems among service providers. In addition, the enhanced interoperability of SPI-5-compliant equipment will lower product costs, reducing the risks associated with developing products for the 40 Gbps market.
The San Diego quarterly meeting also marked the beginning of the OIF's work on a specification for Very Short Reach Level 5 (VSR-5), the first 40 Gigabit optical interface project defined by the Forum. VSR-5 is four times faster than the previous 10 Gigabit interfaces and is a lower cost alternative to interconnect within a Central Office (CO), the group said. Other OC-768 specifications defining various interface points within a 40 Gigabit-capable system are planned for later in 2002.
OIF's membership also elected two leaders of key Forum committees - Bala Rajagopalan, principal network architect at Tellium was named chairman of the Signaling Working Group and Joydip Das, SW product manager at Altamar Networks was elected to lead the Marketing Awareness & Education (MA&E) committee.
The OIF says it helps advance the standards and methods of optical networks, by accelerating the deployment of interoperable optical internetworks and their associated technologies. Optical internetworks are data networks composed of routers and data switches interconnected by optical networking elements.
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