October 08, 2010 — MEF in its recent program activity update has indicated new changes and enhancements made in the certification programs. The MEF Marketing Committee will develop Marketing Requirements Documents (MRD) that will define the market requirements for the proposed new certifications. A MRD will have a degree of detail as to what specifically the certification must entail.
In the update MEF has indicated, “One fundamental change is that certification programs for equipment vendors and service providers may not necessarily be the same. In particular, service provider certification will become more “service-focused” and less ATS centric, at least from a naming perspective, around specific MEF works such as 9 and 14″.
As per the new certification program framework, Retail Certification will verify services across UNI-UNI which will replace the current MEF 9 and 14 certifications. Existing MEF 9 and 14 certified providers will become Retail Certified without further testing. Wholesale Access Certification and Interconnect Certification will verify services across UNI-ENNI and ENNI-ENNI respectively.
MRD’s have been initiated for an expanded MEF Interfaces Certification for Equipment Vendors (formerly referred to as the MRD for UNI TYPE II certification) and Wholesale Access Services Certification for Service Providers.
As a result of the above announcement Net-O2 Technologies, an active technical member at MEF will continue to offer its MEF 9 and 14 conformance test suites with necessary updates to Service Providers who are preparing for Retail Certification by MEF. Net-O2 also offers ATTEST MEF suites for MEF 21 and plans to develop additional ATTEST MEF test suites that would cover MEF 19, MEF 25, and MEF 27 thereby enabling a complete test solution to Equipment Vendors to enable MEF Interfaces certification.