RPR Standards Progress

The Resilient Packet Ring Alliance announced Monday that the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers' 802.17 working group agreed on a single
baseline draft for RPR standards.

'RPR is considered one of the leading technologies for carriers to build new
and upgrade existing metro data networks,' said Robert Love, chair of the RPR
Alliance and vice chair of the IEEE 802.17 working group.

RPR technology was a hot topic at the Society of Cable Telecommunications
Engineers' Emerging Technologies conference earlier this month in San Jose,
Calif.

Love said metro networks can carry more data with greater reliability at a
lower cost. Members of the RPR Alliance include Alcatel Alsthom, Ciena Corp.,
Cisco Systems Inc., Luminous Networks, Nortel Networks and Riverstone Networks
Inc.