Verizon, Optimum Lightpath Earn MEF Awards

Verizon and Optimum Lightpath are the winners of the Metro Ethernet Forum’s Service Provider of the Year awards, announced today at NXTCOMM.

Verizon reprises its win from 2006, taking top honors for national Ethernet service provider. Optimum Lightpath, which operates in New York City and the surrounding tri-state area, won among the regional carriers.


Tom Roche, vice president of business data products for Verizon, accepts the national ethernet carrier of the year award. 

Dave Pistacchio, executive vice president and general manager for Optimum Lightpath, accepts the MEF award for best regional Ethernet carrier.

Runners up were AT&T in the national category and Time Warner Cable in the regional category.

The winners were selected by a panel of judges from Current Analysis, IDC, Forrester Research, Infonetics, Yankee Group and Heavy Reading.

Other finalists included Qwest Communications International Inc., Masergy, XO Communications and Yipes.

Tom Roche, vice president of business data products for Verizon, said the company has not rested on its laurels since its previous win. It has added reach and density and QoS. In first quarter the company added VPLS and pseudowire support, he added.

Dave Pistacchio, executive vice president and general manager for Optimum Lightpath, said the company has placed its bets on Ethernet, and sells 100 percent Ethernet services since 2005. The company also is innovating in making it easier for customers to buy by creating flat-rate products, meaningful bundles and an online service admin tool.

Verizon and Optimum Lightpath were also certified by the MEF as a MEF 14 Service Provider. They are among 11 service providers to earn the recognition.

The others are AT&T, COLT, Embarq, Neon, NTL Telewest, RCN, Swisscom, Time Warner Cable and VSNL International.

The MEF 14 Service Provider Certification Program ensures that provider networks comply with criteria which provides a foundation for the implementation of performance based services and service level agreements.

The MEF said until now every program in the industry has only certified correct functionality, but not QoS.

The group said enterprise users can be assured that MEF 14 certified Carrier Ethernet services can support the most stringent real time communications applications including VoIP and HD quality video conferencing.

Metro Ethernet Forum www.metroethernetforum.org
Optimum Lightpath www.optimumlightpath.com
Verizon www.verizon.com

Share this article: Email, Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Yahoo!MyWeb, Windows Live Favorites, Furl
Add this article feed to: RSS, My Yahoo, Newsgator, Bloglines