MEF Forum


MEF, founded in 2001 as the Metro Ethernet Forum is a nonprofit international industry consortium, dedicated to adoption of assured services orchestrated across a global ecosystem of automated networks. MEF was originally dedicated to Carrier Ethernet networks and services, but is no longer referred to as the "Metro Ethernet Forum" because the work of MEF is now much broader in scope, and includes Optical, Carrier Ethernet, IP, SD-WAN Services and Cloud Services, as well as orchestration of the service lifecycle. However it retains the name "MEF" and "MEF Forum".
The forum is composed of service providers, incumbent local exchange carriers, network equipment vendors, and other networking companies that share an interest in connectivity services. There are over 200 MEF members currently. Membership varies for many reasons including mergers and acquisitions of member companies.
MEF is a combination of a technical and a marketing forum to promote the adoption of assured and orchestrated connectivity services. This contrasts with standard bodies such as the Internet Engineering Task Force and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The forum makes recommendations to existing standards bodies and creates standards that are not being developed by other standards bodies.

History

MEF was preceded by the Ethernet in the First Mile Alliance, also a nonprofit international industry consortium. It was established in 2001 to promote standards-based Ethernet in the First Mile technologies and products and position EFM as a networking technology for an access network.
In 2005, with the completion of the 802.3ah standard by the IEEE, the EFMA became part of MEF.
In 2015, MEF voted to change its official legal name to "MEF Forum" to reflect its expansion in setting standards for virtualized networks.
In 2017, the International Multimedia Telecommunications Consortium was merged into MEF.
In 2018, MEF published its first technical standards on Optical Transport and IP.

MEF white papers

These white papers provide a comprehensive technical overview of MEF services, based on the work of MEF's technical committees. The papers are intended to help buyers and users of MEF services understand the types and characteristics of the services and to help service providers clearly communicate their capabilities.

Technical specifications

As of August 2015, MEF had approved 53 technical specifications :