FRAME RELAY, MPLS FORUMS DECIDE TO MERGE

All but the voting is over as two industry forums announced their intent to merge last week. Formal member approval is expected when a vote is taken later this month to merge the Frame Relay Forum with the larger Multiprotocol Label Switching Forum.

The new MPLS and Frame Relay Alliance, a temporary name, will work more closely to complete technical work, such as the Frame Relay/MPLS interworking agreement, and on developing and promoting interoperability events and testing.

Despite reports that the move was motivated by economics, the president of the Frame Relay Forum, Roger Ruby, said the forum could have gone on without a merger but that mutual benefits indicated it was the best way to go.

The merger is still in a formative stage, and it's impossible to see how the politics inherent in these types of organizations will play out. “But this process is clearly being motivated by a joint realization that there is not only a golden opportunity here, but a crucial market need,” said Tom Nolle, founder and president of CIMI Corp.

The merger presents a better opportunity to converge voice, video and data, and it represents the technologies' natural progression upon which both groups focus, Ruby said.

The Frame Relay Forum was incorporated in 1991 and has approximately 28 active members. The MPLS Forum was founded in March of 2000 and has about twice as many members.