Six Companies Join I3 Alliance

Members of the IMA (Inverse Multiplexing over ATM) Interoperability Initiative (I3) announced the membership of six additional industry leaders to the I3 consortium, and the completion of the second round of successful IMA interoperability testing. The new members are Cisco Systems, Coastcom, Hewlett-Packard, Lucent Technologies' Microelectronics Group, Newbridge Networks, and Wandel & Goltermann.

Interoperability testing was completed with 3Com's PB330, Ascend's SA100 and SA600, Larscom's Orion 2000, the IBM 8265 equipped with Mariner Networks' IMA LIMO, the Newbridge MainStreetXpress 36170 Multiservices Switch, Nortel Networks' OC-3 Express Ethernet Inverse Multiplexer (EIM), Sentient's Ultimate Access Switch 1000 and 1200, and Sonoma Systems' Sonoma Access. In addition, IMA test solutions for HP's Broadband Series Test System (BSTS) and Wandel & Goltermann's DominoA successfully interoperated with WAN access equipment and Central Office (CO) equipment to monitor and troubleshoot IMA protocols, showcasing the availability of IMA test solutions.

The I3 alliance is a consortium of companies formed to facilitate the adoption of the ATM Forum IMA standard through interoperability testing with verification and IMA technical and market education programs. With the addition of these six leading networking vendors, membership in I3 has more than tripled since its inception in May to a total of 15 companies representing both sides of the access spectrum. Earlier I3 member companies include: leading WAN access vendors and I3 co-founders 3Com, Larscom and Sentient Networks, and additional members ADC/Kentrox, Ascend, Digital Link, Mariner Networks, Inc. (formerly Odetics Telecom), Nortel Networks and Sonoma Systems.