A month after awarding its first certifications for “carrier Ethernet” equipment, the Metro Ethernet Forum today announced a program to test and certify carrier Ethernet services.

The MEF will apply to metro Ethernet services the same battery of user network interface tests it has already applied to Ethernet equipment: 44 test cases described by a test specification called MEF 9. Like the first phase of tests, “phase two,” as the MEF calls it, will test two basic categories of services: point-to-point E-Line services and multipoint E-LAN services, which include Ethernet private line and Ethernet virtual private line services.

The goal is to give enterprise customers more confidence in metro Ethernet services as well as to encourage interoperability of metro Ethernet services, which could boost the geographic reach of metro Ethernet if it eventually allows service providers to easily and consistently hand off Ethernet traffic from one carrier’s network to another’s.

“As customers extend their reach, Ethernet will become more ubiquitous,” said Ann Mahoney, Time Warner Telecom’s vice president of data product marketing, who participated in today’s MEF press conference. “We’ll need to occasionally partner with someone like Verizon. It will give me great confidence to know that their service has been designed and approved [by the MEF].”

A number of major service providers have already committed to the effort, including AT&T, Met-Net, Qwest Communications, SBC, Time Warner Telecom, T-Systems and Verizon Communications.

“We’ll certify our baseline [metro Ethernet] services,” said Michael Tighe, Verizon’s director of advanced data services, another participant in today’s press conference. “When we make changes to the architecture, we’ll go back to the MEF to get re-certified.”

Iometrix, the MEF’s initial equipment tester, will be its initial service tester as well and will determine any testing fees. Testing will begin this quarter, and the MEF expects the first certificates to be awarded sometime in the first quarter of 2006.

In conjunction with the MEF’s announcement, research analysis firm Infonetics Research predicted the global market for metro Ethernet services to grow from more than $5 billion this year (already double last year’s size) to more than $22 billion in 2009.

“We’re already seeing, in service provider [request for proposals], specifications that the equipment has to be MEF-certified, so this symbol of carrier Ethernet compliance is important already,” said Michael Howard, Infonetics principal analyst.

Howard said he hadn’t heard any misgivings from metro Ethernet providers not currently signed on to the program. “Carriers are very involved [in the program], and they have their own interests in mind,” he said. “A potential effect of [the MEF program] is that, as soon as service providers announce certification, there will be a new standard in the industry, and any potential nay-saying provider is going to have to come along.”