Ericsson participated in a real-time, global, network-interoperability demonstration at the Optical Internetworking Forum (OIF) in September 2007 in Berlin. The demonstration was conducted by seven of the world's largest telecommunications carriers at laboratories on three different continents using equipment from eight suppliers including Ericsson.

Antony Thorley, from Ericsson's Broadband Networks unit, says: "Interoperability demonstrations show that Ericsson has a standards-based solution. Operators can see that this technology is ready for deployment because they can select from a number of vendors and, once using this capability in their network, they will be able to exchange services with other operator networks."

The carrier's laboratories and locally constructed domains were interconnected via an OIF control plane with inter-domain links resulting in a worldwide test network. The interoperability testing included Multiservice Provisioning Platforms (MSPP), routers, Ethernet Switches, cross-connects and optical add-drop multiplexers (OADMs) in the data plane, and various implementation approaches in the control plane.

Open telecom standards benefit all stakeholders in the long run. They enable connectivity, convenience and cost-efficiency for users, the consumer electronics industry and content and service providers. Success with interoperability can be regarded as a kind of "grade labeling" used by operators when they choose telecom suppliers.

"This shows how Ericsson continues to develop and demonstrate the latest transport capabilities," Thorley says. "Our customers can be confident that investing in Ericsson transport solutions provides them with networks able to meet the challenges of increasing traffic while maintaining competitive costs and provisioning speed."