ATIS' Access Service Ordering Guidelines Now Enable Virtual Concatenation (VCAT) Ordering for Increased Bandwidth Efficiency

September 22, 2008, Washington – The ATIS Ordering and Billing Forum has developed a new Practice and Form in the Access Service Ordering Guidelines (ASOG) to facilitate the ordering requirements for Virtual Concatenation Services (VCAT). The new guidelines are effective September 20, 2008. VCAT’s key benefit is that it enables significantly greater bandwidth efficiency than traditional SONET service. This new practice is included in Version 37 of the document entitled Access Service Ordering Guidelines (ATIS-0404000-0037 - ATIS 0404025-0037).

Virtual Concatenation is an inverse multiplexing technique that is used to split synchronous optical network (SONET) or synchronous digital hierarchy (SDH) bandwidth into logical groups that may be transported or routed independently. The VCAT ordering process will facilitate the provisioning and inventory of the customer’s use of the SONET network.

“The new guidelines are a forward-looking response to a critical industry need,” said Susan Miller, ATIS President and CEO. “Implementing an ASOG process to handle VCAT allows customers to maximize the use of available resources across increasingly busy networks.”

The VCAT Access Service Ordering Guidelines are available through the ATIS Document Center at: https://www.atis.org/docstore/. The Document Center is the leading, online resource for published and pre-published telecommunication standards, as well as technical reports, requirements and guidelines produced by ATIS-sponsored industry forums and committees.

About the ATIS Ordering and Billing Forum
The ATIS Ordering and Billing Forum (OBF) provides a forum for customers and providers in the telecommunications industry to identify, discuss and resolve national issues that affect ordering, billing, provisioning and exchange of information about access services, other connectivity and related matters. For more information on the ATIS OBF, visit the ATIS Web site at http://www.atis.org/obf/index.asp.

About ATIS
ATIS is a technical planning and standards development organization that is committed to rapidly developing and promoting technical and operations standards for the communications and related information technologies industry worldwide using a pragmatic, flexible and open approach. Participants from more than 300 communications companies are active in ATIS’ 22 industry committees and Incubator Solutions Program. www.atis.org