Flavor of the month?

摘要

I have to admit to raising an eyebrow when I first heard about the new Carrier Ethernet initiative launched by the MEF. (MEF, of course, stands for Metro Ethernet Forum ― but now that the organization has decreed that Ethernet isn't just for the metro anymore as far as carriers are concerned, it has a problem with its name. The current solution appears to be to just use the acronym.) As MEF president Nan Chen and Ethernet pioneer Bob Metcalfe spun their vision of Ethernet as the ubiquitous and primary protocol over which all services were going to run in all parts of a carrier's network, eventually flowing directly over glass, my skepticism sprung from the feeling of deja vu their tale engendered. Because of course we've heard all that before, haven't we?