ECI®, PCCW Global, Sparkle and Tata Communications Demonstrate Automatic Service Fulfillment and Activation Across Multiple Service Provider Domains

- MEFnet partners will demonstrate this project at the upcoming MEF17 in Orlando 

ECI, PCCW Global, Sparkle and Tata Communications announced today that the MEF 3.0 Service Fulfillment and Activation Project led by them will demonstrate a major advancement of the MEF's Third Network vision of agile, assured and orchestrated network connectivity services, at MEF17 in Orlando, Florida this week.

     (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20141117/158923LOGO )

     (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/603657/Tata_Communications_Logo.jpg )

     (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/603656/Sparkle_Logo.jpg )

     (Logo: http://mma.prnewswire.com/media/603655/PCCW_Global_Logo.jpg )

In the age of ubiquitous internet, seamless roaming, and decades after the advent of international direct dialing, it is somewhat surprising that it still takes weeks or months to set up widely used services across multiple service provider domains. MEF 3.0 and the LSO framework were established with the express purpose of facilitating simple, assured activation of services across multiple service provider domains and establishing industry standards which will solve this issue going forward. Adopting LSO principles will enable service providers to focus on quickly generating revenues rather than network operations and may give them a competitive edge.

"The MEFnet project team, led by ECI, PCCW Global, Sparkle and Tata Communications, is once again showing that the industry can already benefit from the LSO framework today.  It is important the industry be able to realize the benefits in parallel to the standardization process which is currently in the works," said Pascal Menezes, MEF CTO. "We live and work in a global economy, and advanced communications services and their underlying networks can only meet their full potential if they can be used on a global scale and span multiple service providers. This is the goal of the MEF 3.0 services framework, and MEF 3.0 Service Fulfillment and Activation Project is helping us to realize that dream."

After the development of an LSO innovation platform, and an award-winning proof of concept at MEF16, the MEF 3.0 Service Fulfillment and Activation Project now takes the MEF vision and implementation one step further. The ECI, PCCW Global, Sparkle and Tata Communications project team, has shown that MEF 3.0 can successfully speed up service turn up and assurance across multiple service provider domains, even across domains which still rely on proprietary OSS. This is done by providing a transparent overlay which interfaces with OSS/BSS on the one side and LSO interfaces on the other - thereby permitting the utilization of LSO protocols to fulfill and assure the requested services.

The team's work is being turned into a permanent MEF sandbox project. Open to all MEF members, it features live APIs, permitting the creation and testing of multi-domain services. Most importantly, participants can use this sandbox to test the viability of the LSO solutions today. By adopting the suggested inter-carrier overlay approach, service providers can benefit immediately from global service

automation, while pursuing gradual and systematic upgrades of the proprietary systems to become fully LSO-compliant.

"We've come a long way from when we first introduced our proof-of-concept last year during MEF16, where attendees witnessed the implementation of Third Network services firsthand," said Sarit Tager, VP R&D SDN and LSO at ECI. "Now that the proof of concept has become a reality, we're pleased to bring this solution to MEF, showing a true global vision for vendor agnostic SDN and NFV services is achievable, and that global connectivity can be setup dynamically to access cloud-based services or other applications, and align with end-user expectations for on-demand agility."

The work done by MEFnet project will be demonstrated at MEF17 in Orlando, FL, USA during the week of Nov. 13^th. For more information about the MEFnet project, please click here.

About MEF and MEF17
An industry association of 210+ member companies, MEF is enabling service providers to create a global ecosystem of networks that deliver agile, assured, and orchestrated services for the digital economy and hyper-connected world. These services provide an on-demand, cloud-centric experience with user and application-directed control over network resources and service capabilities. They are delivered over automated, virtualized, and interconnected networks powered by LSO, SDN, and NFV. MEF produces LSO frameworks, open LSO APIs, software-driven reference implementations, service specifications, and certification programs. MEF's work will enable automated delivery of standardized wavelength, Carrier Ethernet, IP, SD-WAN, and Layer 4-7 services across multiple provider networks. For more information: https://mef.net.

MEF17 brings together the key industry players who are enabling agile, assured, and orchestrated services optimized for the digital economy and hyper-connected world. The event is on pace to be bigger and better than last year's popular MEF16 event, with a target of 1,000+ attendees from 275+ companies, 275+ service & technology executives, 110+ expert speakers, 110+ sponsors & event partners, 11 Proof of Concept demonstrations, and more. For more event information, visit MEF17.com.

ABOUT ECI 
ECI is a global provider of ELASTIC network solutions to CSPs, critical infrastructures as well as data center operators. Along with its long-standing, industry-proven packet-optical transport, ECI offers a variety of SDN/NFV applications, end-to-end network management, a comprehensive cybersecurity solution, and a range of professional services. ECI's ELASTIC solutions ensure open, future-proof, and secure communications. With ECI, customers have the luxury of choosing a network that can be tailor-made to their needs today while being flexible enough to evolve with the changing needs of tomorrow. For more information visit http://www.ecitele.com.

The ECI team will be presenting, speaking and demoing various solutions at MEF17 at booth 101. ECI has been also named finalist for 2 prominent MEF Awards (CE 2.0 and orchestration).

About PCCW Global 
PCCW Global is the international operating division of HKT, Hong Kong's premier telecommunications service provider, which is majority-owned by PCCW Limited. Covering more than 3,000 cities and 150 countries, the PCCW Global network supports a portfolio of integrated global communications solutions which include Ethernet, IP, fiber and satellite transmission solutions, international voice and VoIPX services, managed network & security services and our expanding "as-a-service" solutions including OTT video and Unified Communications.

PCCW Global is headquartered in Hong Kong, and maintains regional centers in Belgium, China, France, Greece, Japan, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. To learn more about PCCW Global, please visit http://www.pccwglobal.com.

About Sparkle 
Sparkle is the wholly owned subsidiary of Telecom Italia Group (NYSE:TI) with the mission to develop and consolidate the Italian telco's international services business.  As a leading global carrier and through a global backbone of around 560.000 km of fiber, Sparkle offers a full range of IP, Data, Cloud,  Data Center, Mobile Data and Voice solutions to fixed and mobile operators, Internet service providers, Media and Content providers and to Multinational enterprises. Its sales force is active worldwide and distributed over 37 countries. Find out more about Telecom Italia Sparkle at http://www.tisparkle.com.

About Tata Communications 
Tata Communications Limited (CIN no: L64200MH1986PLC039266) along with its subsidiaries (Tata Communications) is a leading global provider of A New World of Communications™. With a leadership position in emerging markets, Tata Communications leverages its advanced solutions capabilities and domain expertise across its global network to deliver managed solutions to multi-national enterprises and communications service providers.

The Tata Communications global network includes one of the most advanced and largest submarine cable networks and a Tier-1 IP network with connectivity to more than 240 countries and territories across 400 PoPs, as well as nearly 1 million square feet of data centre and colocation space worldwide.

Tata Communications' depth and breadth of reach in emerging markets includes leadership in Indian enterprise data services and leadership in global international voice communications. Tata Communications Limited is listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange of India. http://www.tatacommunications.com

All trademarks used herein are the property of their respective owners. TATA COMMUNICATIONS and TATA are trademarks of Tata Sons Limited in certain countries.

Ashley Schulte
Witz Communications for MEF
[email protected]  

OneChocolate for ECI Telecom
+1-415-989-9803
[email protected]

Ivan Ho
PCCW Group
+852-2883-8747
[email protected]

Natalie Chak
Tata Communications
M: +44(0)7833-043-779 
E: [email protected]

SOURCE ECI Telecom