ITU and the IEEE will hold a workshop on carrier-class Ethernet, 31 May- 1 June.

Much work has been done in both organisations to progress Ethernet, developed as an enterprise technology, into a carrier service. The event will focus on opportunities for further collaboration.

Long-recognized as the ubiquitous LAN technology, Ethernet is now seeing increased attention as a carrier-grade service. In part this is due to the convenience of being able to simply provide end-to-end service, but also carriers can realize savings both in terms of capital and operational expenditure.

Ethernet services are becoming popular because they allow carriers to offer considerably improved flexibility to customers through a much simpler and lower cost interface. Ethernet allows users to specify exactly how much bandwidth they want between the 10Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s range currently offered. Further, Ethernet provides reduced operation complexity and improved scalability for carriers. And as operators look to NGN and the use of the Internet Protocol (IP), Ethernet is seen as the best fit, especially given the rise of such services as IP VPNs, VLANs and dedicated Internet access.

The event will start with an overview of the standards work from ITU-T and IEEE and will then drill down into detail with sessions focusing on: Ethernet based and Ethernet capable access networks; Ethernet network transport; Ethernet Bridging architecture; Ethernet OAM and management; Ethernet QoS, timing and synchronization. A closing session will bring together reports from all of the session chairs in order to identify the direction of future work.