The Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) outlined four new technical work projects for 2003. These include:
- Unified 10 Gigabit optical specifications with a common interface allowing one product to be used for SONET SDH, Ethernet and Fiber Channel.
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Data Transport Protocol will leverage work by the OIF’s Common Electrical I/O (CEI) project, which defines electrical specifications for 4.976 to 6+ Gigabit and 9.95 to 11+ Gigabit signaling. The CEI work will focus on both short reach (0 to 200 mm with up to one connector) and long reach (0 to 1m with up to two connectors) applications. The Data Transport Protocol could be used by various applications to migrate to higher speed electrical I/Os.
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Tunable Laser Project — there is already a tunable laser specification, so the OIF will develop an implementation agreement (IA) for both transmitter and continuous wavelength (CW) tunable laser modules.
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UNI 1.0 Release 2 — which will include latest revisions of signaling protocols while preserving the functionality of the current specification.
In other quarterly meeting news, the OIF announced that Hans-Martin Foisel, head of research group at T-Systems/Deutsche Telekom was elected chairman of the Carrier working group; Amy Wang, product line manager at Avici and Brian Von Herzen, consultant at Xilinx, were elected co-chairpersons of the Interoperability working group; Jim Jones, network architect at Alcatel, was reelected as chairman of the Architecture working group; and Doug Zuckerman, consultant at Telcordia; was reelected as chairman of the Operations Administration, Maintenance, & Provisioning (OAM&P) working grouphttp://www.oiforum.com