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The Metro Ethernet Forum and the WiMAX Forum are two somewhat different groups with similar missions among their respective constituents. The MEF, which has been around for a while and is traditionally charged with promoting the deployment of metro networks, has more recently broadened its focus--or narrowed it, depending on how you look at it--on carrier Ethernet. The WiMAX Forum, meanwhile, is a much newer group promoting a technology about to be born, rather than one that is evolving to a new stage in its maturity.

As organizations, both typify the 21st century version of a telecom industry trade group--more aggressive and more savvy about seeking press attention, and more assertive about seeking service provider members and following carrier advice. Both groups also are currently in the midst of launching product certification programs to test conformance to standards and multi-vendor interoperability. Both of these testing programs begin in the next few weeks--the MEF's on June 14, and the WiMAX Forum's a few weeks later.

Both groups have put a lot of work into getting their testing programs off the ground. The WiMAX Forum had a couple of hurdles and roadblocks along the way, which have been well documented and won't be discussed here. The MEF, in contrast, has moved much more quickly from initial concept to actual testing, the mark of a more mature group working with a more mature technology.

Both the MEF and the WiMAX Forum are great examples of what industry trade groups can be, and what they should be if they put their collective minds to it. The telecom industry is not only becoming rife with new standards, but also with multi-vendor networks. In a previous lifetime, the industry took its time with how it treated standards and the various other addenda, specifications and interpretations connected with them. By virtue of its slowness and a somewhat common attitude that standards worked to the detriment of innovation that could be realized through proprietary development, it was difficult to get broad industry membership in different forums.

That has changed as companies from all segments of the industry have realized that broad industry influence and involvement is the only way to get standard technologies to market efficiently. In the past, the dirty work of multi-vendor interoperability was too often left for competing vendors to figure out to satisfy the spot needs of a specific carrier. The new forums are taking a more active approach in helping to organize the needed testing and making sure it gets done. In the end, that means service providers can focus more on service than on technology issues that should have been sorted out earlier.

E-mail me at doshea@primediabusiness.com.