Has there been any thought given to How the OC-3c signal from a router will be connected to a OC-48 or 192 signal in a typical SONET ring? I would think that the SONET vendors (Alcatel, Fujitsu, etc) would have to work with the router vendors to ensure that SONET overhead information is passed properly to the higher level signal. This overhead provides data on performance, net management, etc. The kicker here is that SONET contains undefined overhead bytes that many vendors have used for proprietary services. This is the reason why different vendors' equipment cannot be mixed within the same ring. The CMISE set of standards is supposed to take care of incompatibilities, but as with any other standard, it will be complete years from when it is needed ;-) mm mm sssss nnnnnn * Bharat Ranjan * m m m s nnnnnnn * Network Engineer * m m m sssss nn nn * Microsoft On-Line Services * m m s nn nn * (206)-936-0471 * m m sssss nn nn * bharatr@microsoft.com * ******************************************************* * The opinions/ideas in this memo are not necessarily * * those of Microsoft Corp. * *******************************************************