Fergie's Tech Blog

As expected, Alcatel and Cisco last night announced they have joined the Infranet effort begun by Juniper Networks, which in turn will begin working under the auspices of an established standards body.

The reborn Infranet Initiative Council (IIC) officially got underway today with an inaugural meeting here that included the election of board members and the selection of a name, which has yet to be determined (IIC2? IICII?). Members characterized the meeting -- still going on at press time -- as the first step toward an ambitious industrywide effort to augment networks with the power to apply quality of service (QOS) and security to every application.

The new group was born yesterday with the announcement that Alcatel and Cisco were joining the Infranet effort, which was launched by Juniper last year. Cisco in particular had steadfastly refused to join the IIC, claiming the industry would be better served by doing this work in the established standards bodies.