HONG KONG--The U.S. cable industry is embracing carrier Ethernet in a major way, as recent Metro Ethernet Forum activity indicates. MEF this week announced its 100^th member--cable equipment vendor Arris--and acknowledged that cable players such as Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable are among a flood of new members of the organization, which as grown 50% in the last six months.

“Cable companies are seeing the growing popularity of carrier Ethernet and they are using carrier Ethernet as a tool to be able to offer other standardized services,” said Nan Chen, president of the MEF. “They were lagging behind telcos in providing business services, in part because they had no equivalent to T-1 service. With standardized services now becoming available, through MEF certification, they can see that happening now.”

Four cable players are now part of MEF--Cablevision’s Optimum Lightpath unit, Cox, ntl:Telewest and Time Warner Cable, Chen said. To date, cable operators offer region networks but Carrier Ethernet “will provide a standardized way for them to interoperate among themselves” or use other carriers’ networks to deliver a nationwide service, he said.

“This is a new business model for the carrier industry, to allow them to provide new growth opportunities,” Chen said. His comments came at a NetEvents meeting in advance of the ITU Telecom World 2006 event here.

The MEF provides certification both of Ethernet equipment and of Ethernet services. The not-for-profit organization is promoting carrier Ethernet, which builds on enterprise Ethernet with five attributes that make the service carrier class. In order to have their services certified, however, service providers must be members of MEF.

The next major push for MEF is to promote the advantages of certified Carrier Ethernet among enterprises. While in Hong Kong, Chen spoke to a group of major service provider PCCW’s top 80 customers to explain the value of that company’s certification.

The cable industry’s certification push indicates how serious the new MEF members are about courting additional business among enterprise Ethernet users, Chen said.