LECOM FOR BROADCAST ENGINEERING AND OPERATIONS GMPLS is an initiative that grew out of effort directed at extending MPLS traffic-engineering techniques. Recall that MPLS as a concept is something of a hybrid or a combination of circuit and packet switching. Motivation for this work lies in the simple desire to more effectively and efficiently control the transmission or transport facilities-circuits in the network. How to do this? Simply invent a new protocol that tells the network to "do this" or "do that" based on a new bright idea, almost without regard to practical business considerations. The main interest driving the work of both groups appears to be some form of standardized control of the multiplexing and transmission layers in the network. Significant work remains to be accomplished before stability and maturity, sufficient to entice suppliers to invest in design and development of real products capable of attracting service provider investment is achieved. Overall, the serial cycles of stand- ards stabilization, product design, and, finally, deployment by ser- vice providers may take 2, 3, 5, or maybe 7 or 8 years. For now, the most appropriate action for the user community is simply monitoring events as they occur. RPR (Resilient Packet Ring) is the most mature of the three. This work is currently under the moniker IEEE 802.17. Essentially, this is an extension of BLSR (bi-directional line switched ring) technology whereby TDM/PDH, or the more common TDM/SONET/SDH is modified to replace TDM with Ethernet, or something akin to Ether- net packets. Such an architecture would permit more efficient use of the bandwidth on a given transmission facility because it would allow multiple classes of service on a single facility. Another way of looking at it is to consider that typical BLSR configuration is such that only half of the facility is carrying live traffic, while the other is idle waiting to pickup the traffic when the load-bearing side fails. If the TDM is replaced with Ethernet or similar packet switc